The Magic Eye of Love
by Ícaro (Francisco C.) Martins & José Antonio Garcia
Vera Maria Gata (Carla Camurati) gets her first job as a secretary at the Friends of Ornithology, a dusty office full of stuffed birds, right in the middle of São Paulo’s “Boca do Lixo”. Prolíxenes (Sergio Mamberti), her boss, is absent most of the time. One day, while changing two paintings on the wall, Vera discovers a hole that leads to a motel room. Her neighbor is Penélope (Tania Alves), a prostitute who receives all kinds of clients. For Vera, the world next door represents her dream of liberation, until she decides to look for Penélope and her life changes. The first film in the ‘trilogy of desire’, The Magic Eye of Love received critical acclaim and won several awards.
with Carla Camurati, Tânia Alves, Sérgio Mamberti, Ênio Gonçalves, Cida Moreira
Jorge Mautner & Nelson Jacobina, Arrigo Barnabé, Ismael Ivo, Pitta, Wladimir
Ícaro (Francisco C.) Martins & José Antonio Garcia
Adone Fragano
Olympus Filme
Antonio Meliande
Jair Garcia Duarte
Cristina Mutarelli
Luís Lopes
José Antonio Garcia (1955 – 2005) was a Brazilian filmmaker. A member of the São Paulo cinema generation of the 1980s, known among São Paulo critics as the “New São Paulo Cinema”, he attended the scriptwriting and directing courses at USP’s School of Communication and Arts between 1973 and 1976, where he directed some experimental short films, such as Hoje tem futebol (1976), Marilyn Tupi (1977) and Tem bola na escola (1979), before making his feature film debut in partnership with Ícaro (Francisco C.) Martins. His solo film, O Corpo (1991), based on the short story “A Via Crucis do Corpo”, by Clarice Lispector, with Marieta Severo, Claudia Jimenez and Antonio Fagundes, won awards at the Brasilia (Brazil) and Cartagena (Colombia) Festivals. He also directed the feature film Minha Vida em Suas Mãos, produced by and starring actress Maria Zilda Bethlem. He died in Rio de Janeiro in 2005, after premiering a play he directed based on Clarice Lispector’s works: “Crônicas para não esquecer e A Pecadora Queimada e os Anjos Harmoniosos”.
Ícaro, or Francisco C., Martins (1954), started out in the “New São Paulo Cinema”, writing and directing, together with José Antonio Garcia, O Olho Mágico do Amor (1982), Onda Nova (1983) and Estrela Nua (1985), winning several awards, such as APCA, Gov. do Estado de SP, among others. He collaborated on the scripts for TV Cultura’s renowned series “Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum” and was the screenwriter for André Ristum’s Tempo de Resistência (2003). Together with Helena Ignez, he directed Luz nas Trevas – A volta do Bandido da Luz Vermelha (2010), shown at the 63rd Locarno Film Festival. Director and co-writer of Maria – Don’t Forget I Come From the Tropics, an official selection of the “It’s All True” festival in 2017. In the theatre, he has directed virtual shows such as” The Grand Inquisitor” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Diana, by Celso Frateschi and Horácio, by Heiner Müller (Teatro Ágora, 2021/22); In 2022, at SESC Consolação, he collaborated with Vivien Buckup to direct Chekhov’s The Swan Song and, together with the author Celso Frateschi, directed the play Gongorê.