“When I was invited, I insisted on talking to the scriptwriter of the ceremony, which they found strange at the time. “The idea of including Portuguese was mine,” says Braga. The following year, she was back as a presenter and spoke some Portuguese, which was translated by her on-stage partner Michael Douglas. She attended the ceremony in 1986 when Hector Babenco’s Kiss Of The Spider Woman - in which she played the eponymous figure imagined by the film’s protagonist - had four nominations (best picture, director, screenplay and actor, which William Hurt took home). “If we can make the American film industry understand why we are not representing Brazil in the category of best foreign-language film, maybe they can do justice for us now.”īraga is not, however, a stranger to the Oscars. “We do not have the power of a big Hollywood studio, but Clara has her own strength,” says the actress. Ever since the film was released there on October 14, she has promoted her work in New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston, San Francisco and Miami. US distributor Vitagraph Films does believe in Aquarius, and launched an Oscar campaign to secure Braga a best actress nomination.
How can we know what type of film will be supported by the government from now on?” “We can’t accept the way they are conducting the culture in Brazil. She believes Aquarius was boycotted because of the protests in Cannes by Mendonca Filho and his crew against the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, who was then Brazilian president, but was removed from office at the end of August. This is exactly what we continue to do,” says Braga. “The Brazilian government simply tried to stop us from representing our country overseas, but it did not work out.
Since its world premiere in Cannes, the film has been praised by international critics as one of the best to come out of Brazil in years, and has been sold by SBS International to more than 60 countries. I’ve always fought for what I believe in.” Political statementīrazil’s Ministry of Culture chose David Schurmann’s family drama Little Secret to represent the country at the 89th Academy Awards, even though Aquarius seemed the more natural choice. Kleber gave me the platform and the right words to put it all out. “Not only about Brazil, which I had been away from for a long time, but about my job and the actor’s career in Brazil. “It was like I had been in a cave, with all those emotions stifled inside me,” says Braga of the release she found through the role.
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Instead, she fights to the end to preserve her sanctuary, where she keeps her books, records and memories of the full and happy life she has lived there. The 66-year-old actress pours her soul into the film, which is written and directed by Kleber Mendonca Filho and exposes the thoughts and feelings of a woman who becomes by necessity a symbol of resistance.Ī retired journalist and widow who has beaten breast cancer, Clara is too strong-minded to succumb to pressure to sell her beachside apartment in Recife in the name of urban renewal. Personal touchīraga’s life story and world view made her the perfect choice for playing Clara, the main character in Aquarius, and her performance is so powerful that a best actress nomination would come as no surprise. I only found out about the social differences in Brazil when I had to go to public school,” she says, recalling that her newly widowed mother (costume designer Maria Braga Jaci Campos, known as Zeze Braga) was left with seven children to raise alone. “Until then, I had a good life studying at a nuns’ school in Sao Paulo. “I have been interested in the dimensions of social justice since I was nine years old,” explains Braga (it was around that time her land-dealer father died after contracting malaria). The group lost the lawsuit, but Braga was happy to set an example.
She was, for example, one of a small group who dared sue Brazilian entertainment conglomerate Globo Network, demanding payment for Viva Channel’s 2014 rerun of late-1970s soap opera Dancin’ Days, in which she played an ex-convict who forgot her frustrations on the dance floor. In her native land, where she has starred in some of the biggest local box-office hits of all time, such as Bruno Barreto’s Dona Flor And Her Two Husbands (1976) and Neville de Almeida’s Lady On The Bus (1978), she has spent her career fighting for the rights of artists. The enduring icon of Brazilian sensuality on screen, Sonia Braga has always been a fighter.