Constantino

synopsis

CONSTANTINO is the story of a forgotten book. A book which began to be written in 1880 by young professor Daud Constantino Al-Khoury, one of the only teachers lecturing in XIX century Syria. The manuscript travelled to Brazil in 1926 together with the professor and his family who immigrated to start a new life in São Paulo.

With the death of its author in 1939, the manuscript was discovered by chance by a Syrian diplomat. The book with the complete works of the professor was finally published in Syria. 500 pages in classic Arabic, with some of the first plays to be enacted on Syrian soil.

Almost half a century later, on September 11th 2001, Otavio Cury, a Brazilian great-grandson of Daud, arrived in Damascus on a tourist trip. All he knew regarding his great-grandfather was that he had been a professor. During the only evening he spent in Homs, he mentioned the name of the professor to a group of strangers on the street and he was led to the book.

The story of his great-grandfather begins to emerge. His links with the resistance movement whose leaders were executed by the Turks; his connections with Abu Khalil Al-Qabbani, known as the creator of Arabic theater and main author of the Arabic Renaissance; his pioneering newspaper articles, while he directed a periodical in Homs.

Otavio travels back to Syria carrying the translation of the works, to search for the living memory of Daud Constantino Al-Khoury. The guide to conduct the journey is now poetry and the story of his great-grandfather.

director's statement

I was born and bred in the city of São Paulo, a descendant of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants. I have always thought of myself as Brazilian. To me, the East was on the other, far side.

At the time, I had not yet started to make films, and the book remained on my shelf for six years. It was an item of curiosity, a conversation piece, which I showed friends.

Documentary filmmakers deal with search, and seek for a particular reality. CONSTANTINO comes from this simple equation: apart from the poetic works of an ancestor, what was written there was part of my own story. To have the 500 pages translated was to investigate my own past.

The book moved on from being a conversation piece to becoming a challenge.

To produce this documentary is, I believe, writing the postscript to a book I have never read. Written by an author I had never heard of. This to me seemed as a sufficiently interesting adventure to turn on my camera and start searching.

Otavio Cury

Otavio Cury

Otavio Cury was born in São Paulo in 1971. He graduated in Agronomic Engineering at University of São Paulo in 1994.

His first documentary as a director, Cosmópolis (55 min / 2005), was shown by Brazilian TV channels Cultura, Futura and GNT,
selected to Brazil's main film festivals and was part of Tate Modern's exhibit Global Cities in 2008.

Otavio was a partner at Mutante Filmes from 2003 to 2006. In 2008 he started Outros Filmes.