GRAND PRIX COMPETITION

MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET)

USA, 2006, 85 min. Portuguese, English

Director: Jason Kohn
Producers: Jason Kohn, Jared Ian Goldman, Joey Frank
Cinematography: Heloisa Passos
Editing: Doug Abel, Andy Grieve, Jenny Golden
Sound: Coll Anderson
Production company: Kilo Films
Print Source:
Kilo Films
Jared Ian Goldman
e-mail: jigoldman30@gmail.com

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)

Jason Kohn, former research assistant to Errol Morris, launched his directing career in style when his kinetic and brutal tour of decadence, wealth and corruption in Brazil, Send a Bullet, won the Sundance Festival’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary and Best Cinematography. A multilayered and blackly humorous dissection of the sprawling cycle of violence and corruption in modern day Brazil, the film follows the connections between a wily politician, Jader Barbalho, who uses a frog farm to steal billions of dollars; a wealthy businessman obsessed with bullet-proofing his cars; a plastic surgeon who reconstructs the ears of mutilated kidnapping victims; and a professional kidnapper. Magrinho, the kidnapper, nonchalantly compares the economics of abduction and drug-trafficking against those of robbing banks (his former pursuit) and plainly surmises that, in Brazil, "You either steal with a gun or a pen." Shot on 35mm over five years and spiced with pulsating Latin music, Send a Bullet shows how political corruption and economic disparity is ruining Brazil. Kohn, whose mother is Brazilian, says his aim is to expose a reality that most people don’t know about.

Jason Kohn is a first-time director from New York. At twenty-three he left Errol Morris’s office to make the feature documentary Manda Bala. In the course of producing this film he received the Sundance Documentary Fund grant and a Mortimer-Hayes Fellowship. Although seemingly a New York Jew, Jason is actually of South American decent and is a proud supporter of the evolutionary sciences. Jason’s life is dedicated to the appreciation and production of cinema and fighting the corrosive cultural powers of god, greed and corruption. Jason made Manda Bala with close college friends Joey Frank and Jared Goldman. Having spent the past five years solely producing and directing the film, he now looks forward to developing narrative feature films and earning an income.

Filmography:

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) (2006), documentary feature debut.

SATURDAY, MARCH 31 AT 11:00 PM./GALLERY THEATRE

THURSDAY, APRIL 5 AT 10:30 PM./CHOPIN THEATRE

SUNDAY, APRIL 8 AT 9:00 PM./CHOPIN THEATRE