About this event
In August, we will screen Reaching For The Moon. You can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=654X8V2bwA0
Reaching for the Moon (Portuguese: Flores Raras) is a 2013 Brazilian biographical drama film. The film is based on the book Flores Raras e Banalíssimas (in English, Rare and Commonplace Flowers), by Carmem Lucia de Oliveira.
The film dramatizes the love story of the American poet Elizabeth Bishop and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares.[2] Set largely in Petrópolis between the years 1951 and 1967, the story coincides with the emergence of Bossa Nova and the development of Brazil's capital, Brasilia. The film tells the story of Bishop’s passionate and often tumultuous life with Soares in Brazil.
Below is a review of Rare and Commonplace Flowers, which is available on Amazon. At age 40, the celebrated American poet Elizabeth Bishop met and fell in love with a Brazilian woman named Lota de Macedo Soares. The two lived together in Brazil from 1951 to 1967. Novelist Oliveira's engaging dual biography tells of their "long and sad" relationship. Because most of the letters between the lovers were destroyed, Oliveira fills in conversations and personal scenes with a novelistic touch that may irritate those looking for a more precise reconstruction of events. Furthermore, Oliveira, a Brazilian herself, tends to focus heavily on Lota, "a marvel and a terror" whose obsessive desire to fight through Brazilian bureaucracy to build a landmark park in Rio de Janeiro ruined her health and her relationship with Bishop. By contrast, Bishop's personality is much less fully rendered. Nevertheless, this book offers a new perspective on the American poet, and the love story between these two women is undeniably intense and tragic.