Brazilian filmmaker Orlando Senna has passed away at the age of 86. According to Variety, Senna died on June 9 from pneumonia in Rio de Janeiro.
Legacy of 'Iracema'
Senna achieved lasting fame as a co-director with Jorge Bodanzky of the 1974 film Iracema: Uma Transa Amazonica, a hard-hitting social realist feature often ranked among the greatest Brazilian films of all time. The movie is sometimes cited as a prominent title in Brazil's Cinema Novo movement, though by that time the movement had largely run its course, and the film's style is far removed from that of directors like Glauber Rocha.
What Iracema shared with earlier Cinema Novo films was a sense of subversion and exposure of Brazil's extreme poverty. The story follows Iracema (played by Edna de Cassia), a 14-year-old girl who leaves her Amazon home to become a prostitute in Belem. She hitches up with Tiao, a truck driver traveling along the newly opened Trans-Amazonian Highway, which provides a portrait of ecological devastation and a vulnerable Indigenous population.
Other Works and Career
Senna also co-wrote Hector Babenco's feature debut King of the Night, a withering portrayal of toxic masculinity set in the 1920s. He made his last film in 2020, titled Longe do Paraiso.
In addition to his filmmaking, Senna earned respect as head of Cuba's San Antonio de los Banos International School of Film and TV from 1991 to 1994, a school co-founded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He also served under Culture Minister Gilberto Gil as head of Brazil's National Audiovisual Secretariat from 2003 to 2007, as general director of TV Brasil, president of Television de America Latina between 2008 and 2015, programming director for CineBrasil TV, and advisor to Sao Paulo agency Spcine.
