murilo astro

Inferno Verde

"INFERNO VERDE" is one nifty twenty-minute Sony VX-1000 trip to Manaus, Brazil, essentially the pulsating metropolitan heart of the Amazon, round trip and all expenses paid by Costume, the local brand LIVE hasn't been without sharing some of the former productions from before, itself led by Adonis Perfeito and his intrinsic drive to represent. To the equally-on-point platform Black Media Skate, he recites:

"« Green hell, green paradise; this is the classic Amazon where the past is common and synonymous with gigantic snakes and magic fish... » once said Glauber Rocha in his short film 'AMAZONAS, AMAZONAS' (1966).

For five years, we've been conducting ethnological studies, digging deep searching Manaus' alleys and landscapes for the summits of this 'green hell'.

A region rooted into the very old world, entranced by its situation in between water aplenty and luxurious vegetation that cracks concrete and asphalt, where alligators, jaguars and sloths fight for civility. One odd mix of creation and creatures, natural life and artificial death."

For the average skater now, this notably translates under the form of original - and crazy - spots, duly exploited by a collective of efficient and creative individuals, including Felipe OliveiraCotinz, Luis Moschioni and many more remarkable stylers. Ah and the editing and soundtrack are top notch, too!

Against Le Corbu

At this point, introducing you yet again to Murilo Romão of Flanantes productions would almost qualify as insulting; an offense that still would not strike as deep as Le Corbusier's approach to architecture and urban planning, notably based on the division and structuring of public space according to the singular, primarily intended utilisation of each element of its design - basically summing up, and stripping down the city to nothing but its most basic, uttermost practical functions with no space reserved for the wandering of the soul and other vagrancies - both of the spiritual and physical type, whether or not on wheels. Highlighting the dangers of such a vision, most notably the breach it creates between individuals and a certain innate right of theirs to freely enjoy their direct environment, Murilo hits back with "Against Le Corbu", a sixteen-minute audiovisual trip to Brasilia, a location intended as "the city of the future" as soon as its construction in the sixties following in the footprints of Le Corbusier's bleak utopia, only in order to take over its spots with one fine crew of gentlemen (including LIVE regular Cotinz) as accomplices.

As far as the spots themselves, well... Let's say that just rolling up to most of them already makes one ponder all the possible parallels between skating and taming some kind of wild beast.

Also featured: a sweet photo gallery courtesy of Renato Zokreta.

Zonzo

In addition to the always outstandingly creative, insanely rugged, against-all-odds excellent street skateboarding from the cream of the crop of Brazilian skateboarding, what we appreciate in Murilo Romão's frequent productions (the former ones we've introduced to you before, here) is his will, as a true filmmaker, to push the envelope of the medium of the skate video, and the spectrum of its language.

His works along with his collective Flanantes transcends the documentation of hard-hitting urban stunts (amongst other various reinterpretations of apparently quite hostile settings), by always placing it at the core of a given, coherent context.

This time, it is the body of work of Italian architect Francesco Careri that caught his attention for long enough that he articulated his whole new full-length film around an idea that we'll let him go in depth about, below:

"Francesco Careri, dans son ouvrage classique 'Walkscapes : la marche comme pratique esthétique', détaille les avantages de la marche, de l'exploration et d'à quel point il peut être bénéfique pour l'humain de s'égarer car, parmi les cultures dites primitives, les sédentaires qui ne se perdaient jamais ne progressaient jamais autant que les peuples nomades. Vers la fin du livre, il détaille la ville de Zonzo, une métropole imaginaire et métaphorique qui serait une ville dans la ville ; à mon esprit, c'est très proche des skateurs, à la perpétuelle recherche de Zonzo dans leurs déplacements imprévisibles. "Zonzo", cette nouvelle vidéo Flanantes, est infusée de cette pulsion d'explorer de nouvelles zones de la ville, ou de sa périphérie ; des zones abandonnées, des lieux en transformation spatiale comme temporelle et finalement, on se rend compte qu'en pratique, qui perd en temps gagne en espace." - Murilo Romão

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