Ignacio de Loyola Brandão wins documentary made by his son: ‘I couldn’t die before seeing it’

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It was the words that made life bearable for Ignacio de Loyola Brandão. Hence the title of the new documentary about the 89-year-old writer, I don’t know how to live without wordsis more than appropriate. Directed by your son André Brandãothe film is in the selection of 49th São Paulo International Film Festival, with screenings on October 20th and 28th at Espaço Petrobras de Cinemaand should enter the commercial circuit soon.

Loyola, columnist for Estadão and immortal of Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL), received the report in his apartment in the Pinheiros neighborhood, in São Paulo, where more than 18 thousand books are spread everywhere. “I couldn’t die before seeing this film,” he says, whose anguish about the human condition led him to write novels like Teeth in the Sun (1976) e You Will Not See Any Country (1981). “I also don’t want to die before seeing my two-year-old granddaughter grow up. I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to die.”

Ignácio de Loyola Brandão with his son André Brandão, who filmed his father and made the documentary ‘Não Sei Viver Sem Palavras’ Photo: Tiago Queiroz/Estadão

The documentary is enriched by records from 38 rolls of Super-8 film, captured by the novelist throughout the 1970s. The historical images are interwoven with more than 20 hours of contemporary interviews with Loyola, including emotional sessions held in his hometown, Araraquara, in the interior of the state. The poetic tone is deepened by the inclusion of the writer’s texts recited by the actor Gabriel Braga NunesAndré’s cousin.

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“It was a combination of wanting to tell a great story and realizing that I always knew there was a great story in my family. We had this idea of ​​trying to combine erudite and pop to find the essential film, which was about something profound, important books of literature, but with dynamics in the editing and narrative that made it engaging”, says the filmmaker. “And also not be a boring film about literary theory!”, adds Ignacio.

The writer’s personality is captured intimately in the 80-minute film. “I’m a very closed person. I talk about literature for hours and hours, but in the family it’s a big problem, a big affliction”, he admits, being complemented by his son: “The film is a break from that hardness”.

Film ‘I Don’t Know How to Live Without Words’ portrays the life of Ignácio de Loyola Brandão Photo: Disclosure/Bretz Filmes

In addition to being a photographer, André is also an engineer graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2015, he made a career transition to cinema. Now, with the completion of his first major film project, the boy settles in the area that, curiously enough, was his father’s childhood dream – who fell in love with Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946) and became an extra in The Promise Payer (1962).

Also attracted to the written word, Ignácio began a career in journalism, as a film critic, and soon realized that the world of fantasy brought him more comfort than facts. “In fiction, I could go in and narrate it my way, how I wanted. Reality, sometimes, is boring”, summarizes the veteran.

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“It was very important to bring the layer of reading excerpts from books, because I think that one of the characteristics of my father’s life is that there is not much difference between reality and fiction”, points out André.

In addition to being a filmmaker, André Brandão (left), Ignacio’s son, is also an engineer graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Photo: Tiago Queiroz/Estadão

The literary man’s inventive work, crystallized in more than 50 published books, is revisited lightly and provided with historical context, as in the case of the classic Zero (1975), banned throughout the country by the military dictatorship and which became a symbol of resistance. “I suffered a lot with that censorship, but I think that today the censorship is much greater. Social networks exercise it absolutely and cancel you. There is something strange in this world. It is more difficult to write today, I have to be very careful”, he says.

In times of war and global upheaval, father and son express concern about the future. “Is humanity going to end?”, asks Ignácio, before answering himself: “I don’t know. That’s what drives me to write”.

André, on the other hand, claims to have attached himself to the “universe of spirituality” to understand the incomprehensible. “What is not currently in crisis? Politics, the economy, the planet… But, speaking of Hinduism, the lotus flower is born from the mud. So, I think there is a process in life of this balance between the tragic side and the bright side.”