Cinema’No I business my body, I expose ‘, reflects Jonathan Guilherme about acting in The Laughter and the knife

Brazilian cinema was present at the 78th edition of the Cannes Festival with The laughter and the knife (I only rest in the storm), feature film directed by Portuguese Pedro Pinho (Djon Africa) Displayed on the prestigious show un Ces certain regard.

The international co -production between Portugal, Brazil, Romania and France has the participation of 31 Brazilian professionals, including the producer Tatiana Leitethe director of photography Ivo Lopes Araújothe anthropologist Renato Sztutmanthe automaker KAREN AKERMANthe sound editor Pablo Lamar and the actor Jonathan Guilherme.

What is the story of The laughter and the knife?

Inspired by the homonymous song of Tom Zéthe film had its world debut in Cannes and tells Sérgio’s trajectory, a Portuguese environmental engineer who, when working on a road project between the jungle and the desert, is affectionately involved with two local inhabitants: Diára and Gui.

Gui’s role is interpreted by the Brazilian Jonathan Guilhermeformer volleyball athlete who today acts as a poet and actor in Barcelona, ​​alongside Portuguese Sergio Courage and Cape Verdean Cleo Diára. Brazilian production is signed by Bubbles Project, with national distribution of showcase films.

Rolling Stone Brazil talked to the actor Jonathan Guilherme About his film debut, how his personal trajectory influenced the construction of Gui, and reflects on the experiences experienced during filming in Africa. Check it out:

Trajectory to cinema

Jonathan Guilherme narrates his trajectory as an intense and courageous crossing: “This leap was an arduous, hard but tall, very tall“Born in Araçatuba, São Paulo, he recalls the challenge of leaving his hometown, his family and friends, and even Volleyball Future, a team where he played professionally, but no longer exists.”To be and get where I’m now, I had to leave there“, account.

Poetry was essential in this process of transformation. “That’s what kept me alive on the days when I was hungry for food, feeling, and hope, a goddess to save me.“
His entry into the cinema happened almost as a poetic chance: he was discovered by the director Pedro Pinho Through Instagram, he participated in the casting with the help of an Italian photographer and, shortly thereafter, was boarding for Lisbon for a laboratory with the other protagonists, Sergio Courage and Cleo Diára. “I remember these days as summer days“He recalls, before heading to Guinea-Bissau, where he lived and recorded the film for about five months.

The athlete and the poet in Gui

To compose Gui, your character in The laughter and the knife, Jonathan He confesses that he has gathered essential elements of his two most striking identities: athlete and poet. Of volleyball, brought “discipline, the psychological, never to give up“, a fundamental resistance to survive the layers of chaos and neocolonialism that the film addresses:”My athlete at a time was my strongest self“.

Already from poetry, he carried to the character the domain of words and the expression: “I really like the voice of my self-poet. I can identify when I see the movie, when the ‘I Poet’ is in action, acting and doing his work. And that’s what else I brought to gui“.

The experience in the set

Jonathan describes the experience of filming in Guinea-Bissau and Portugal, along with a different team, as an experience “Beautiful, revealing, interesting, intriguing and very loving“. Emotion is so much that, even in Cannes, when giving the interview, he confesses:

Easily I can get emotional, I can cry if I think about the team, the people I met in that country, the friendships I made, the places I spent, at the May 1st party there in Varela. My God, what was that, unspeakable. “

Moment “Tom Zé”

Asked about the most “Tom Zé” moment of filming, the one in which chaos becomes poetry, Jonathan Remember a striking scene with the colleague Sergio Courage: “It was our conversation about the various possibilities of loving… We both use our own lives, viscerally, to compose that scene“. For him, in that chaotic environment, they managed to bring out”The poetry of love“, making the experience unforgettable.

Baobá

Among the most hilarious experiences, Jonathan Highlights the days when she shared the house with the actress Cleo Diárain Bissau: “Sunny, beautiful, laughter, hug and many hilarious moments, a lot of connection as well“.

But the most surreal moment was the collective hug in a baobab: “Baoba, tree of life. That tree I read in the Bible… makes me laugh it laugh… because it’s beautiful. It’s crazy. It’s beautiful.“He considers this meeting as a cycle that opens and another that closes:

This ancestral meeting was something that I believe can be explained in a surreal way, because we love each other, we understand each other… She is my life sister, she is my mother in the cinema. “

The exposure of the black body

On the complex issue of eroticization and silencing black bodies in audiovisual, Jonathan It is straightforward: “I did not negotiate, I do not negotiate my body, he was never in negotiation. I expose“. He sees his participation in the film as an act of exposure and voice:”I feel like I was not silenced, I feel like I had a voice, not for the first time, but I feel like I had a voice in a place I never had“.

He recognizes the ambiguities of this experience: “I was eroticized, yes, but I also feel that I eroticized, you know? So then it is a question that has two hands that are“. And completes:”From the first moment I decided to participate in this movie, I also made the decision that I would give myself. 200%.“

Jonathan believe that The laughter and the knife breaks with an exotic European look and distanced over Africa and its bodies: “I never felt this look of Pedro to me… and it is very important for me to be in that space, that I do not feel seen this way, because I am not exotic“. According to him, this sensitivity is present in both the film and the stance of the director.

Memories and Learning

Among the many memories, Jonathan It highlights a taste that will never forget: “The fruits I had never seen in my life. One is velvet. My God, what a fruit, what a juice, what a taste“. For him, to prove that fruit was like experimenting”a velvet fabric that had a taste“.

But the greatest learning was personal: “I learned that Jonathan and Guilherme… he will be very big. Pedro and the movie gave me the possibility that I feel big, I feel important.“Not just for its height of 1.97m, but in the sense of perceiving”Great of mind, great of poetry, great of love, great of kindness, great of discipline“.

Also read:Cleo Diára, from The Laughter and the Knife, is elected best actress at the show un Ceroin Regard in Cannes

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