Gabriel Mascaro (born September 24, 1983) is a Brazilian visual artist and film director.
Biography
Gabriel Mascaro is a Brazilian filmmaker and visual artist. He started his career as a documentary-maker in 2008, with KFZ-1348 (co-directed by Marcelo Pedroso), Um Lugar ao Sol (High-rise, 2009) and Doméstica (Housemaids, 2013). That same year, he released the short film A Onda Traz, O Vento Leva (Ebb and Flow). 2014 saw his first narrative feature-film, Ventos de Agosto (August Winds), followed in 2015 by Boi Neon (Neon Bull), which brought widespread acclaim. He also created an installation entitled Não é Sobre Sapatos (This is not about shoes) and the photographic series Desamar (De-love).
Mascaro has received a great deal of critical attention and stirred the curiosity of film festival curators since debuting Boi Neon at the 72nd Venice Film Festival, where he won the Special Jury Prize, followed by special mention in Toronto and 5 Best Film awards at the Festival of Rio, Warsaw, Adelaide, Morocco and Cartagena.
His works have been screened or exhibited at leading festivals and events, including the IDFA, Locarno International Film Festival, Rotterdam, La Biennale di Venezia - Orizzonti, Oberhausen, the Guggenheim, Videobrasil, MACBA- Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Barcelona, MoMA, Panorama da Arte Brasileira no MAM-SP and Bienal de São Paulo.
He has done artistic residencies at Videoformes, France, through Videobrasil, and at the Wexner Center for the Arts (USA). In April 2016, the first retrospective of his work was held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in New York City (USA).
Career
Gabriel Mascaro was born in Recife, the capital of the State of Pernambuco, Northeastern Brazil, on September 24, 1983. He holds a degree in Social Communication from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE).
He began his career in 2008 with the documentary KFZ-1348, which he co-directed with the filmmaker Marcelo Pedroso. Ostensibly a search to track down the former owners of a Volkswagen Beetle registered under the license plate KFZ-1348, the film takes the car as its main device and approaches the lives of its owners as a privileged window onto Brazilian society. The documentary won the Special Jury Prize at the 32nd São Paulo International Film Festival.
His next film, High-rise (Um Lugar ao Sol) (2009), introduced him to a wider variety of international festivals, with screenings at over thirty events, including BAFICI and Visions du Rèel. High-rise steps into the private worlds of those living in luxury penthouses in Recife, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The film uses interviews with these residents to fuel a debate on desire, visibility, insecurity, status and power, and to develop a sensorial discourse on Brazilian social and architectural paradigms. According to the Los Angeles Weekly, the film “effortlessly provokes thoughts on inequality, satisfaction and oblivion”. In Brazil, the documentary proved controversial, with some questioning the ethics of its approach to the interviewees.
In 2010, Mascaro launched another documentary, Avenida Brasília Formosa. “It’s a film about the disconnect between urban planning policy and the dreams and desires of the city folk”, wrote the film critic Carlos Minuano. The film debuted on the Bright Future program at the Rotterdam Festival, which also awarded him a script-development grant for Neon Bull (2015) through the Hubert Bals Fund.