Personal details
- Birth Date: 1928-04-15
- Birth Location: São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
- Professions: Writer, Director, Producer
Roberto Santos, straight outta São Paulo’s gritty suburbs in 1928, ends up crashing into the film scene right when Brazilian cinema’s trying to find its feet. By ’52, he’s hanging around at Vera Cruz—the country’s first real-deal studio—just soaking up the wild west atmosphere of a new industry. Then, boom, 1956 rolls around and he drops "O Grande Momento," which basically yanks Italian-style neo-realism out of Europe and dumps it right into Brazil. Nobody else had pulled that off yet. Fast forward to ’65, Santos grabs a Guimarães Rosa novella—yeah, the Guimarães Rosa, the guy everyone in Brazil swears is untouchable—and flips it into "A Hora e Vez de Augusto Matraga." Shockingly, it works. Like, actually works. People dig it. Cannes even gives it a nod. But, of course, the ’60s and ’70s in Brazil aren’t exactly wine and roses—censorship’s breathing down his neck. Still, Santos keeps hustling, cranking out six more movies. Two go full-on experimental: "Vozes do Medo" is chopped up like a magazine, and "As Três Mortes de Solano" retells the same story three totally different ways—fantasy, then realism, then straight-up circus. When the film gigs slow down, he jumps to TV, directs commercials, whatever pays the bills. He almost gets to adapt another Rosa story, "Campo Geral," but rights drama kills the project. So, he pivots to Machado de Assis—another giant in Brazilian lit. His swan song, "Quincas Borba," tries to mash Machado’s 19th-century world into Brazil’s messy ’80s. After showing it at Gramado, where critics basically roast him, Santos dies of a heart attack at São Paulo airport. Rough way to go out, honestly.
Man, movies just hit different when there’s someone special next to you. I didn’t even get what all the hype was about—just flickering lights on a screen, right? But then she came along, and suddenly every story felt bigger, every laugh sharper, every heartbreak way too real. We’d sit in the dark, popcorn flying everywhere, her hand in mine, and I swear, I started caring about stuff like plot twists and soundtracks. Even the bad movies turned into inside jokes. It’s like falling for her switched something on in my brain, and now I can’t separate the feeling of being in love from the magic of the movies themselves. They’re all tangled up together. Now, every time I hear that opening theme or see the lights go down, I’m right back there—heart racing, hoping she laughs at the same dumb lines I do.
April 15, 1928
Konidela Ram Charan
São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
97 years old