Project Proposal: Developing the Script and Shooting the Feature Film “CASSANDRA MORTA”
Proponents: @gustavovinagre and @thaisampr
Report: [Report] Filmes de Infiltração DAO - 2022 September 16th – 2023 July 24th
Project Overview:
The project aims to develop the script and shoot the feature film “CASSANDRA MORTA,” a morbid and queer comedy written and directed by Gustavo Vinagre and Thaís de Almeida Prado. The story follows FLÁVIA SUÉLEN (names can be interchangeable, played by Thaís), who arrives in Berlin to collect the ashes of her sister, Cassandra. Cassandra, a vibrant explorer, met her demise while liberating her deepest sexual energy, succumbing to the ultimate pleasure. Although distant in recent years, the two sisters shared an understanding and love for each other.
In the past, Flávia Suélen and Cassandra made a pact that if one of them passed away before the other, they would perform a mortuary ritual and live a part of each other’s lives.
Upon arriving in Berlin, Flávia Suélen encounters the queer family chosen by Cassandra, a polyamorous group with whom Cassandra had a child. The family presents Flávia Suélen with a promised challenge.
Throughout the film, there are five encounters/challenges during which Flávia Suélen is accompanied by the spirit of the lively Cassandra. Along the way, she discovers Berlin, its queer fauna, and local immigrants.
Film Encounters/Challenges:
The film aims to be shot in 10 daily sessions, with a reduced crew, following Flávia as she navigates Berlin, guided by the mischievous spirit of her deceased sister, Cassandra. The script will allow room for collective input, drawing from the experiences of the actors and the rest of the team, combining real-life encounters to construct fictional situations.
Connection with Web3:
The project seeks support from Filmes de Infiltração DAO due to our commitment to promoting NEAR-supported films worldwide. We believe that the web3 ecosystem offers new possibilities for storytelling and collaboration, and we aim to explore these creative frontiers in “CASSANDRA MORTA.” The film will incorporate elements of web3 technology, NFTs, and blockchain integration, enabling new forms of artistic expression and engagement with the audience. As filmmakers embracing web3 technology, we see the potential to integrate NFTs, blockchain, and web3 platforms into the film’s distribution and promotional strategies. Our partnership with Filmes de Infiltração DAO will open up new possibilities to explore and experiment with these innovative approaches to engage audiences and extend the film’s reach.
Justification and Benefits:
“CASSANDRA MORTA” as a morbid and queer comedy represents an innovative artistic endeavor with the potential to push boundaries in the film community. By combining real-life experiences with fictional elements, the film offers a unique and thought-provoking narrative. Additionally, the project’s partnership with Filmes de Infiltração DAO and web3 technology fosters diversity, innovation, and cross-collaboration, opening new possibilities for queer filmmakers and artists. Through the film’s exploration of Berlin’s queer culture and immigrants, it seeks to challenge preconceived notions and idealizations while understanding the allure of Berlin as a haven for queer communities. “CASSANDRA MORTA” represents an innovative and unique cinematic venture that explores queer themes with a comedic approach. The film’s low-budget production allows for creative storytelling and intimate exploration of characters and emotions. We aim to foster diversity, inclusion, and cross-collaboration within the film community while creating a thought-provoking and entertaining experience for the audience.
Project Overview:
We are seeking partnerships and funding to produce our low-budget feature film “CASSANDRA MORTA,” a queer comedy that explores themes of sisterhood, queer relationships, and self-discovery. The story follows Flávia or Suélen (42 years old) as she travels to Berlin to collect the ashes of her sister, Cassandra, who met her demise while liberating her deepest sexual energy. As per their promise, Flávia or Suélen embarks on a ritualistic journey, engaging with Cassandra’s chosen queer family, confronting challenges that test her limits, and discovering the vibrant queer and immigrant communities of Berlin.
Total Requested Funding Amount: 8,000 USD
Financing Plan:
5,000 USD (Received from DAAD - Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) - confirmed
Equipment support (Provided by the Director of Photography) - confirmed
Gustavo and Thais housing (Covered by DAAD) - confirmed
Additional funding needed - 8,000 USD (Requested to Filmes de Infiltração DAO)
Film Crew and Expenses for “CASSANDRA MORTA” (Short-Film):
Thais’s travel expenses (São Paulo to Berlin) - 1000 USD
Performer 1 - 150 USD
Performer 2 - 150 USD
Performer 3 - 150 USD
Performer 4 - 150 USD
Performer 5 - 150 USD
Performer 6 - 150 USD
Performer 7 - 150 USD
Director of Photography (with camera equipment) - 700 USD
Editor (with editing room) - 700 USD
Music and Sound Designer (with sound editing room) - 700 USD
Director and Screenwriter (Gustavo)- 700 USD
Director, Screenwriter, Actor (Thais) - 700 USD
Production and Sales agent - 700 USD
Credits Designer - 100 USD
NFT’s Designer - 250
Transport expenses: 600 USD
Food expenses: 600
DCP - 200 USD
Total Funding Amount Expected: 8000 USD
What we would like the @creativesdao-council to consider (knowing that there are several DAOs that also deserve resources) is that you propose an amount that Creatives DAO could provide for us and this will already be of very great help for making this film.
Timeline: [2023 September] - [2024 January]
Conclusion:
The project proposal for “CASSANDRA MORTA” represents a bold and innovative cinematic venture that embraces the power of web3 technology and collaborative storytelling. By engaging with Filmes de Infiltração DAO, we hope to gain valuable support and resources to bring this vision to life. “CASSANDRA MORTA” aims to be a transformative and impactful film that pushes boundaries, fosters diversity, and reflects the vibrant spirit of queer artistry and storytelling.
Thank you for considering our project proposal. We are excited about the creative possibilities ahead and the potential impact of “CASSANDRA MORTA.” With the support of Filmes de Infiltração DAO, we can fulfill our goal of creating a transformative and impactful feature film that pushes boundaries, fosters diversity, and celebrates the queer experience. Helping us with a part or with a complete requested funding of 8,000 USD will contribute significantly to the success of the project, and we express our sincere gratitude for any support provided.
We look forward to the opportunity to collaborate and create a truly unique and groundbreaking film and we ask the support of @creativesdao-council with the NEAR amount that creative could provide to us.
Sincerely,
Gustavo Vinagre and Thaís de Almeida Prado
About the directors:
Gustavo Vinagre is a filmmaker and documentarian who has written and directed over 14 short- and six feature-length films. Having studied literature at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and film at the EICTV school in Cuba, Vinagre holds a prolific career spanning over 10 years, with films that are known for their vibrant queerness and their intimate approach to image and sound. The award-winning Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter is his first fiction feature film and premiered at Berlinale Forum in 2022.
Between melancholic optimism and pessimistic joy, Three Tidy Tigers points to distinctive elements of Vinagre’s filmography. From the visual fragments of pop culture to the rejection of naturalistic acting styles, the film transitions from a feel-good movieto a portrayal of a hopeful world. The protagonists are confined to their homes due to an unnamed respiratory virus pandemic. Here, domestic space becomes their communal arena for education, labor, and sexuality, while urban space is converted into a site of transitory intimacy, memory, and grief.
The home is a recurring space in his filmography, much of which has been labeled as “apartment films.” Such characterization is a reference to these films’ locations, but also to their pornographically personal vision of a cinema made at the margins of an economic system. It reflects an approach to filming that elaborates its own cinematic expression through the encounter of bodies and images; a modular and relational practice built by the relationships between those rotating inside and outside of the frame. It is within the enclosure of the apartment where the space for intimate connections is opened.
In documentaries such as Divinely Evil (2020), The Blue Flower of Novalis (2018), I Remember the Crows (2017), and Film for Blind Poet (2012), the apartment provides the stage for a portrayal of emotions, sexual fantasies, fetishes, traumas, pain, and desires. It is a theatrical space with no borders separating reality from fiction, or memory from performance. Apartments are procured and decorated, becoming the aestheticized or artificial homes of these characters. The visual insularity is combined with a remarkable approach to the spoken word: it is through depositions, confessions, and performances that individuals and characters become one. These are films resulting from complex layers of recurring collaborations, and while they remain profoundly personal, they also provide a figuration of Brazil and a fragment of its ordinary and political life.
From the interior to the exterior, the work of Gustavo Vinagre is a cinema of poetry and desire where queerness exceeds the realm of representation in order to become part of the fabric of images. A concrete and realist utopia that rejects idealizations. A space where the self and the other are conflated. Or as the celebrated writer Glauco Mattoso claims in Blind Poet : “the reality of others is also my reality.”
Thais de Almeida Prado is a filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist, and actress, holding an MA in Film Studies (2014) and a BA in Performing Arts (2004) from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her artistic endeavors transcend traditional boundaries, exploring a wide spectrum of disciplines, including performance, dance, theater, visual arts, cinema, music, NFT, and literature. Thais is known for crafting performances, video-performances, and real-time narrative processes that delve deep into the realms of cinematography, theater, and literature.
She is recognized as one of the new talents of Projeto Paradiso and has participated in prestigious programs like Torino Film Lab Next Comedy and DocLisboa Lab, where her film project “As Mulheres do Pau-Brasil” (The Brazilwood Women), exploring the desire on canvas, received the “Special Arché Jury Award for the best project in the writing and development stage.”
Thais was one of the hosts of the community building sessions at Doc Toolbox Programme, an initiative jointly developed between EFM Documentary and EFM Diversity & Inclusion, at BERLINALE together with the web3 artist Violeta Ayala.
During quarantine, Thais remained creatively engaged, producing new solo films, and actively engaging in various online projects that showcase her expertise in the realm of audiovisual arts. Notably, in 2019, she embarked on the project “Purge. From Violence. From Bodies that Collide. From Asphyxiation. From the fear of a metropolis” during her artistic residency at Centro da Terra, SP. This endeavor earned her the prestigious Odyssée fellowship, granting her the opportunity to develop a project at the artistic residence of Saline Royale d’Arc-et-Senans, France.
Throughout her illustrious career, Thais has collaborated on a diverse range of artistic projects. She curated the audiovisual project “Luz de 5ª” in Sao Paulo, co-created the VR video dance “Coordinates,” and contributed to the powerful dance-installation “Co2 and other Toxins,” inspired by the dam disaster in Mariana (MG, Brazil) in 2015.
As a filmmaker, Thais directed the award-winning short-film “Os Barcos” (The Boats) alongside Caetano Gotardo, earning recognition at the Vitoria Film Festival and CineMUBE in Brazil. Her video-performances “Passagens” (Passages, 2011) and “Sohl Canal” (2010), crafted with students and influenced by Maya Deren’s aesthetics and Patricia Galvão’s biography, have captivated audiences internationally.
Thais has also engaged in noteworthy collaborations, including the video-installation “Baú de Pagu” (Pagu’s Chest, 2010) with Rudá K. Andrade, paying tribute to the artist Patricia Galvão. Additionally, she actively contributed as a co-creator and performer in projects such as “IntranspoRníveis,” “Origem / Destino,” “Entulho-Excesso,” and “Aparelhos de Superar Ausências,” showcasing her versatility in audio-visual narratives, urban interventions, and performatic installations.
As a member of the artists’ collective Corrosivo from 2008 to 2010, Thais participated in artistic residencies in France, Spain, and Brazil, fostering her creativity in site-specific performances and experimental videos.
Her choreographic works, such as “Eu em Mim Só” (2006) and “80/min” (2003), have earned her accolades, including the X Nascente Prize for Best Choreography.
Thais’s journey with the Companhia Auto-Reatrato began in 2002, where she seamlessly merged performance, dance, and theater. Her impressive directorial skills brought forth captivating works like “Retornarse” (2002) and “80/min” (2003).
As the Company celebrated its 10 years of remarkable work in 2012, Thais proudly presented a repertoire of four plays in São Paulo city.
Through her diverse artistic ventures and collaborations, Thais continues to push boundaries, embracing new cinematic narratives on web3, and contributing to the vibrant world of contemporary arts.
Thank you for the unwavering support
Love wins 