Alberto Cavalcanti

Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilianborn film director and producer He was born in Rio de Janeiro the son of a prominent mathematician He was a precociously intelligent child and by the age of 15 was studying law at university Following an argument with a professor he was expelled His father sent him to Geneva Switzerland on condition that he did not study law or politics Cavalcanti chose to study architecture instead At 18 he moved to Paris to work for an architect later switching to working on interior design After a visit back to Brazil he took up a position at the Brazilian consulate in Liverpool England Cavalcanti corresponded with Marcel LHerbier a leading light in Frances avantgarde film movement This led to a job offer from LHerbier for Cavalcanti to work as a set designer So in 1920 he left his job at the Consulate and moved back to France to work for LHerbier he was to be involved in the making of numerous films the most notable being LInhumaine He was soon making his own films in 1926 directing his first Rien Que les Heures Nothing But Time a day in the life of Paris and its citizens In 1927 he collaborated with Walter Ruttmann on a similar project set in Berlin called Berlin Die Sinfonie der Großstadt Berlin Symphony of a Big City Cavalcanti took a job with Paramounts French studios after the talkies came in but he found himself making more commercial films which could not hold his interest and left Paramount in 1933 In the same year he returned to England to work for John Griersons GPO Film Unit He was involved in many capacities from production to sound engineer He was to spend seven years at the GPO Film Unit working on many projects Much of his work at the GPO was uncredited he acted as a mentor to many new film makers but in 1937 he was appointed acting head of the GPO Film Unit when Grierson left for Canada When told that the only way the position could become permanent was to become a naturalized British citizen he decided to leave the unit In 1940 Cavalcanti joined Ealing Studios under the leadership of producer Michael Balcon He worked as an art editor producer and director His most notable works of this period many of them propaganda films were Yellow Caesar 1941 Went the Day Well 1942 Three Songs of Resistance 1943 Champagne Charlie 1944 Dead of Night as codirector 1945 and Nicholas Nickleby 1947 In 1946 Cavalcanti left Ealing over a dispute about money He went on to direct three more films in the UK before returning to Brazil in 1950 In Brazil he worked as a producer for Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz the company eventually became insolvent After being blacklisted as a communist in Brazil he decided to move back to Europe in 1954 He eventually settled in France where he continued his work in television He died in Paris in 1982 at the age of 85