Aldir Blanc, who would turn 80 on Wednesday (2), is the subject of two films premiering at the Rio Festival, in October. The feature films "Aldir Blanc — Response to Time" and "I Went to Watch You Sleep" show the composer as the audience has never seen him, with the directors having access to the apartment from which he practically never left, home videos, and very personal writings. Aldir died at age 73, on May 4, 2020, from Covid-19.
The documentary "Response to Time," directed by Marcus Fernando and Hugo Sukman, draws from nearly ten hours of interviews conducted with Aldir in 2019 — one in audio and another in video — to show, without didactics, what his life was like and how his creative process worked. Sukman classifies the work as "a visit to Aldir."
The two films share a careful entry into the artist's intimacy and some ideas, but present different approaches. The directors of both works had access to exclusive material that reveals little-known aspects of the composer's life and work.
