Eduardo Coutinho

"I make films about the act of filming. It's always about that," says Eduardo Coutinho the accomplished Brazilian documentarian renowned for his minimalist style and remarkable interviews. Coutinho's unadorned documentaries create striking portraits of ordinary people, from the tenants of an enormous lower middle class building in Rio de Janeiro (Master Building), residents of a favela in Rio on the eve of the new millennium (Babylon 2000) or elderly members of a remote community in the northern Brazilian state of Paraiba (The End and the Beginning). Coutinho’s documentary work has been an ongoing and deepening mediation on the act of listening and the act of filming. His focus is on the unique moment, the word, that is born of the exchange between subject and filmmaker.  Coutinho started his career in fiction (he was the screenwriter on Doña Flor and her Two Husbands), worked many years as a journalist and has dedicated himself to documentary since the 1980s. He was the 2007 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Gramado Film Festival.

Selected Filmography

Playing (2006)

The End and the Beginning (2005)
Cinema Brazil Grand Prize — Nominated for Best Documentary

Metalworkers (2004)
Brazilia Festival of Brazilian Cinema — Critics Award

Master Building (2002)

Babylon 2000 (1999)
Cinema Brazil — Grand Prize

Santo Forte (1999)
Brazilia Festival — Best Film, Best Screenplay
Grammado Film Festival — Special Jury Prize
São Paulo Association of Art Critics Awards — Best Film

The Scavengers (1993)
Silver Daisy Award

Twenty Years Later (1985)
Berlin International Film Festival — FIPRESCI Prize