Day 1

    We arrived in Rio Tuesday around noon, and were picked up at the airport by Jim´s friend Bernardo. A fellow musician and percussionist. His step father Felle met us at baggage claim and waited with us until Bernardo arrived. We smoked cigarettes that we had longed for after 24 hours of traveling. I slept on the flight from DC to Rio, Rob was not so fortunate. Quickly my plans to work on the plane evaporated. I joked with a new friend before leaving that when you depart on a long plane trip you get ready with days worth of reading and work, thinking time will stand still once the plane takes off. However, most passengers land without even turning a page.
     As I sat outside the airport taking in the new air touching my skin, Rob talked to Felle in Portuguese about our project, soccer, and Rio News. I just soaked in the air, people, and taxis. In one way it felt totally new and foreign, in another it just felt like smoking outside any airport in the states. Bernardo arrived in a small white hatchback, fitting Jim´s description of Harry Potter to a T. The sights and sounds of familiarity sitting outside the airport were quickly whisked away as we jumped on the highway heading into Rio and Copacabana.

The Introduction

Chega De Saudade is the upcoming feature documentary exploring, capturing and preserving the most important cultural movement in Brazil, Bossa Nova. This project will delve into the foundation of the movement in the early 1950’s, starting in the hometowns of the movement’s founders and moving onto Rio de Janeiro, where Bossa Nova music became the new big thing. Interviewing the surviving members of the movement, this project will take us into the soul of Brazil during the cultural renaissance of the 1950’s through the Brazilian Coup D'état in 1964. While Brazil was struggling with civil war, Bossa Nova, a well-matured movement, quickly rose and captured the attention of the world.

There are several key elements to the production strategy created for this film. Stephen and producing partner, Roberto Bettega, have been studying music for many years, allowing it to slip into their films and contemporary music. Slowly the nostalgic emotions and undercurrent of Bossa Nova music, which began inspiring them individually, drove them to revisit its past by creating this documentary.

As Bossa Nova was heavily influenced by American jazz, Stephen Tucker (Director) was heavily influenced by Bossa Nova. This is key to the understanding of the final product of the film. Beginning with exploration of the core of Brazilian cultural history and sculpted through the eyeglass of American narrative film, “Chega de Saudade” will evoke the same message as the song with the same name, which was the first composition to enter the canon of Bossa Nova music.

The public cultural scope of Bossa Nova will influenced them to move to Brazil, leave everything behind in the United States for a period of time and allow “Chega De Saudade” to bloom.

-HDproductions