Uma nova Família do Brasil
In 1999, a Chinese couple full of ambitions came to Brazil with their fantasy “Amazon Photography Program” and top-level professional photographic equipment. They were encountered with so many difficulties, such as a strange environment, language barrier, repeated robberies and traps, etc. However, they still embarked on an unforeseen photography journey without hesitation, from coastal cities to the wild west, and finally to the Amazon River, with adequate capital reserves and a rich professional history.
The long journey filled with countless dangers endowed them with tens of thousands of precious images as well as a son and a daughter.
In 2009, the family of four returned to China, where the couple took 8-year-old Link and 6-year-old Viviana to many cities. They went into the Forbidden City, climbed up the Great Wall, and reached the Gobi Desert and the Mongolian prairie . The couple hoped they could know about and fall in love with China. However, the siblings eventually chose Brazil.
THE DOCUMENTARY FILM
JOURNEY RECORDED AN UNPRECEDENTED CULTURAL EVENT
In 2000, Chinese photographer Yanjun Zhang and his wife, as both planners and executants, equipped with the most advanced digital photography collector and outdoor equipment, and driving jeep SUV modified by CHRYSLER Motor Corporation, Brazil- made Chevrolet SUV and Ford supply truck, began their unprecedented photography project to create the documentary film Charm of Culture in Brazil. They started from Sao Paulo, “the melting pot of world’s immigrants” to Cananéia, the firstly-named Brazilian city. Along the line traveled by gold washers, through Florianópolis, the famous coastal city of South America and the “German Town” Blumenau, they reached Miranda, a city in the Pantanal swampland and entered Amazon River basin from Columba, the border city between Brazil and Bolivia. The whole project costs 10 years with a journey of 160,000km traveled, more than 200,000 pictures shot and 6,300 hours of documentary images with 83,000 Brazilian participants involved.
Describes the might of culture
From the perspective of cultural integration
The first part of the film is themed on celebrations (Festa). Its purpose is to create “collective ebullience”, popular among all regions, rooted in a habitation of certain races and displayed in the traditional form. The film explores racial conflicts for enlarging the power of ethnic groups by way of “prosperity of domain”.
The second part, “Our Sea, the Sea of the World” (A MAR, O MAR). Discusses varying viewpoints and social changes. In the first Brazilian town (Cananéia) named by colonists, state modernization and the abolition of slavery haven’t left much impact. From the time when the Portuguese landed to the period when countless expeditions, adventurers, explorers, pirates and sea thieves came and left, the local inhabitants have lost their initial curiosity towards the passers-by. Imported religion has taken the place of their traditional faith and ceremonies and the Indian’s ancient way of life coexists with modern civilization.
The third part, Pantaleiro focuses on the descendants of gold prospectors. Who have become a new ethnic group in Brazil. Cherishing and respecting their ancestors, these people live in a paradise isolated by wilderness.
CHARM CULTURE
PROJECT CULTURAL EXCHANGE OF CHINA AND BRAZIL
In March 2009, Resource Magazine prepared the documentary film Journey by those documentary images; then they carried out a Brazil film culture exhibition, Charm of Culture—Brazil·Poem of Love at Xi’an Art Gallery and published a large format film atlas, Journey—Brazil·Poem of Love by cooperating with National and Folk Literature and Art Center of Ministry of Culture of the PRC, China Documentary Research Center and Shaanxi Normal University General Punishing House Co., Ltd.
Cultural Charm develops from a documentary film into a large China and Brazil cultural exchange project jointly implemented by several organizations integrating academic exchange, multi-media publication, film culture festival and vedio network platform.