

RUBENS GERCHMAN:
THE KING OF KITSCH
77 min. | Portuguese / Spanish | Brazil, 2022
A country is not built with just industries, railroads and an economic plan. A country is also built with images. The artist Rubens Gerchman understood this very well and created a series of icons and scenes that speak of Brazilian reality, making our precariousness a value.
Between 1963 and 1978, the documentary The King of Kitsch portrays the artistic creation and political action of a generation that knew how to create images of a country that was becoming urban and experiencing the hardest years of its political life.
CREW
Director: Pedro Rossi
Producer: Isabel Joffily
Screenplay: Bianca Oliveira, Isabel Joffily and Pedro Rossi
Photography: Bernardo Pinheiro and Pedro Rossi
Editing: Bianca Oliveira and Pedro Rossi
AVAILABLE ON:

”Rubens Gerchman: The King of Kitsch does a commendable job with the collection of its archival material; (...) But, more productive than praising the gathering of the material (or the content that resides in it) is praising the way it is mixed up in the editing. Here is a portrait not just of Rubens Gerchman, but of the spirit of his time.
(Pedro Mesquita, Vertentes do Cinema)

"At just 1h15 in duration, the film brings a raw and inspiring portrait of Brazil's national production. Therefore, we can say that the King of Kitsch, created in Gerchman's memory, is essentially about a collective memory of all of us."
(Giovana Nacca, Artequeacontece)




"Without ceasing to be an exaltation to the main character, who died in 2008, Rubens Gerchman: The King of Kitsch avoids the fatal trap of being a hagiography of Gerchman by establishing connections between events that occurred in July 1978 and the country's political situation from 2017 onwards."
(Eduardo Escorel, Revista Piauí)