Pictures of Ghosts

A Brazilian documentary. The subject is a city centre and the cinemas that disappeared from it. The first part is an apartment. The house where the director lived with his mother for years; he shot his first films here, and that old footage is set beside the rooms as they are now. The same wall, the same window, different years. The second part is the cinemas. Recife once had dozens of them; large, ornate halls seating two thousand. All of them closed. Some became churches, some car parks, some were demolished. The documentary goes inside these buildings and joins them to archive footage: old posters, opening ceremonies, queues and projection rooms. The third part is people. Those who worked in the halls, ticket sellers, projectionists, and a dog everyone in the city knew. What the narrative is interested in is not nostalgia but record: the film is about not the disappearing but what remains afterwards. The same street is shown again and again, each time from another year. The sound design matters. The director narrates, and old film sound, street recordings and familiar music come in between. Kleber Mendonça Filho directed; he is known for his fiction and this documentary comes out of his own life. Who it is for: anyone who likes film history, the memory of cities and personal documentary. Who it is not for: anyone looking for pace; the film is slow, scattered, and has no interest in reaching a conclusion.