SÃO PAULO - DENNISON RAMALHO'S TURDS OF TERROR

When it comes to Brazilian film, everybody keeps making "favela classics," or family films about heroic soccer teams, or Romeo and Juliet garbage set in a slum. Fuck all those people. Dennison Ramalho purposely tries to give himself nightmares so he can transform them into film. He just made a new short film, Ninjas, about the black masked police officers who perform acts of extermination, so we talked to him about it.

Vice: How does Ninjas follow your cinematography and your favorite themes?
Dennison Ramalho: Ninjas follows the extreme rhythm of my past work. I enjoy filming violence. I like it. What can I do? I¬¥m curious, I hate taboos, and I love revealing the forbidden. I make films for adults. Those who can¬¥t take it, either leave the theater or faint. But I am aware that shocking is easy, so I make an effort to find originality and fill the experience with ideas and new perceptions, always giving the beholder what other directors don't dare show. I don’t refuse showing anything, not even my partners in crime: the actors and technicians who fights for the projects. They shine! I struggle for this and know the size of every one’s courage. As for me, I just kill my reputation‚Ķ

What's going on in Ninjas?
The movie is based on the tale of the journalist and writer Marco de Castro. Marco is the best Brazilian horror literary author ever, and his stories are hardly lullabies for gothics. They are chronicles of a nocturnal and filthy S√£o Paulo, inspired from personal experiences and covered in the days where he was a police reporter. He created an awesome blog called The House of Horror: Deliriums of Blood and Death. Marc√£o saw a lot of blood, unlike other Brazilian authors that are making loads of money around here but still fearful of turning over a petty Band-Aid. I adapted a tale, Um Bom Policial [A Good Cop],an abstraction about the presence of a second nature, diabolical, recurring in the sadistic acts of the S√£o Paulo’s Military Police. It depicts the story of a freshly recruited cop, religious, obliged to embrace his new identity and turn into a brutal avenger. And worse, learn to enjoy the job.

Your short films are very prized. What do you expect for this one?

The prizes were luck. They are gestures that I appreciate, sure‚Ķ if it’s cash, even better! Amen! But I’m honest, serial-honest! So, I made the movie that had to be done, like the others. I have a philosophy: I never know when I’m going to film again, although I gave my blood to do something which, as little as it seems, doesn’t come unseen. To me the thing isn’t about being a big turd, but a smelly one! Therefore the short film is a fucking exercise of freedom…. Brazilian horror movies exist and are being made by a new generation, and I hope that the festivals don’t pretend to ignore this movement, but embrace it in the name of diversity. Am I making myself a minority?

No. In your trajectory, you've ended up known as the guy who picked up where Zé do Caix√£o [Incarnation of the Devil]left off. Is this uncomfortable to you ?  Really, I don’t know if it fits. Firstly because I am a learning freshman and the guy is a very experienced and capable director. Sometimes I think it’s too much to be compared with him, other times I feel a bit of pride. I don’t like this thing of being someone’s successor. I was born kind of a successor--I had a brother who died from whom I got my name. Yeah, I think it disturbs me for personal reasons, but it makes me happy because I love Mojica, he was always a great to me, and gave me the joy of writing the movie about the return of Zé do Caixa√µ.  How can you live from making movies in Brazil? When I fully succeed, I’ll tell you. For now I write scripts. It’s like the guy who let the soap fall in the shower: ¬¥¬¥I can take it¬¥¬¥… (Thanks Louren√ßo! Thanks Mr. Diomedes!) But as my cartoonist friend, Rafael Gramp√° declared, "We have the mean spirit of art." So it’s not worth complaining about.  Since you’ve began making movies, Brazil went through some changes in the industry, some films that were big sellers and other independent films who were successful. What do you think about the Brazilian cinema of today?  I don’t feel very entitled to answer. Lately, I haven’t been seen a lot of movies and I’ve been working a lot. I walk around like a hermit, writing. I never see Brazilian entertainment movies. For that I have a television, which is free and better. Talking about cinema, the art, I say that the best thing that happened in the recent Brazilian audiovisual has two names: Luiz Fernando Carvalho [director of Lavoura Arcaica]and Claudio Assis [director of Baixio das Bestas]. I want to do a Brazilian horror cinema that, just like these guys, transits between the visceral part of drama and the sublime of the image. They inspired me very much.  Do we have the space for terror over here in Brazil?  No. But a new generation still needs to improve (I include myself in it). After some opportunities within the movie scene, I think it can happen. The cool thing is the horror fans, in general, in their commentaries on the net, are very enthusiastic with the production here. I believe that we will be to cinema what, I don¬¥t know, Sepultura was to Brazilian music. It¬¥s a matter of time.  You told me you once that you were going to buy a nightmare diary. Are you writing everything down? Are your nightmares still helping you in the storytelling?  Yes, I have a diary of strange dreams and nightmares. I wake up screaming, making a fool of myself‚Ķ But lately, my sleep is kind of lazy. I think I need to eat more junk food before going to bed.  ADEMIR CORREA