(BY ALI NADERZAD) Cao Hamburger has written and shot a series for HBO called Sons of Carnaval and one childrens’ feature film called Castle Ra-Tim-Bum (1999). His film The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, about what happens when a young boy is left to his own device in a strange neighborhood of Sao Paulo by his political activist parents, has been making a lot of noise on the festival circuit. A cinematography which plunges one in 1970 totalitarian Brazil, unlikely friendships which develop among unlikely friends and memorable characters, all which make The Year My Parents Went on Vacation a touching (without the gooey center) and highly watchable film. SCREENCOMMENT.COM recently caught up with the director at his hotel in New York to ask him a few questions.
I heard the casting process for The Year My Parents Went On Vacation was very difficult. Is this true? Casting was difficult, yes. Patricia (Faria; casting director) and her team of four people as well as myself went to various schools to audition kids. We auditioned more than one thousand boys. Mauro’s character (played by Michel Joelsas) was initially written very differently. He wasn’t supposed to be handsome, but he was frail and small, instead. And Hannah was written as older, bigger, and more developed than the boy. When we found them, however, I changed my mind. Both of them and other children were located in the Jewish community. Patricia Farias had said that if the children had Jewish background, they would feel more comfortable, and she was right. So I saw every single child personally. We had a short-list of fifty boys and I worked with each one over two or three days and then we shortened it by ten people, and so on and so forth. The school the boy came from was also considered important. Casting was a huge responsibility so we took our time. When I first saw Michel (Joelsas) in the selection, he was the one who stood out the most.
Michel Joelsas, who plays young Mauro, was wonderful. I heard he’d never acted before, is this true? Yes, he had never acted in a film before and we could see that he had two traits which went so well: intelligence and a sense of observation. And he had strong charisma. He’s also got a certain shiness and an inner strength.
What made you decide to use the Jewish community as subject? There are two reasons why the Jewish community fits so well. First, because of my personal roots. I wanted to rediscover my roots. Because even though we could do the same story with a Japanese community, the Jewish community fits so well in this story because Jewish history has to do with what the boy was going through: exile, persecution, alienation, etc. I wanted to talk about bar mitzvahs, an important transition into adulthood. It’s very strong and very important part of Jewish life, maybe the most important one. I had been thinking of making a film about it for a while. I was living in
Do you have a good knowledge of the Jewish community in
How do religion and soccer compete with one another? For one thing, I don’t agree with Marx when he said that religion is the opium of the people. They used to say at the time that, soccer is the opium of the people. And I don’t agree with that either! Football is a kind of religion in
You played soccer, I assume? Yes (smiling) I was a very good goalie.