In memoriam: Eduardo Coutinho
Eduardo Coutinho had a prolific audiovisual output since the 60s, when he first started filming Cabra Marcado para Morrer, one of his most poignant pieces, whose production was cut short by the military regime, and resumed over 20 years later. He was also the director of TV show Globo Repórter from 1975 to 1984, and collaborated with the scripts for films like Leon Hirszman’s The Deceased and Bruno Barreto’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, among others. From the late 80s onward, Coutinho turned exclusively to filmmaking, and directed recent classics such as Edifício Master (2002) and Jogo de Cena (2007).
His work is an amalgamation of genres, straddling the boundary between documentary and fiction, questioning the fluid barriers which separate reality from representation, and putting the neutrality of documentary film in check.
In 1990, Coutinho featured in the 8th edition of the Videobrasil Festival with his video The Debt Game, a medium-length piece on Brazil’s and Latin America’s foreign debts and their social implications. In 1992, the director made a statement at the Festival, in which he critiqued recent audiovisual productions, objecting to the then-current generation of video makers. View his statement on Channel VB.
Videobrasil deeply regrets his passing.