Since 2015, the Literature team at the Moreira Salles Institute has been producing audiovisual material about the life and work of Clarice Lispector. The film Dias de Clarice em Washington [Clarice’s Days in Washington] (28:38) is part of this research and dissemination effort. In this latest work, you will find entirely unpublished images in film and photography.
Until then, we had only two filmed records of the author: the famous interview for TV Cultura (1977) and rare images of the writer at her apartment, in the Leme neighborhood, also during an interview, for the TVE program Os mágicos [The Magicians] (1976), the latter incorporated into Clarice Lispector – A descoberta do mundo [Clarice Lispector – The Discovery of the World] (2022), a film by the director Taciana Oliveira. Both recordings were aired on television and produced in similar periods (the author of The Hour of the Star died in December 1977).
Dias de Clarice em Washington captures a very different and decisive moment in the life and work of the writer, when she lived in the American capital with her family, between 1952 and 1959. In addition to a significant number of unpublished photographs – which record her domestic environment and interactions with friends – there are precious images filmed during a public event, in which the writer, her husband Maury Gurgel Valente, their son Paulo, in addition to friends of the couple appear. It concerns a brief color video (06:59) that was recorded on film (by an unknown author) and discovered in 2023 at the Center for Research and Documentation on Contemporary Brazilian History (CPDOC), which is part of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Rio de Janeiro.
Dias de Clarice em Washington was directed by Eucanaã Ferraz, the Literature Consultant at the IMS. The editing was done by Laura Liuzzi and the research was conducted by Bruno Cosentino, who is part of the IMS Literature team.
See also
by Cicero Cunha Bezerra
Michel de Certeau, in his La fable mystique, addresses an important aspect in the relation between idiocy and holiness in the first centuries, particularly in Christian literature, namely: a mode of isolation in the crowd. Idiocy, in the form of madness, is attributed to the crowd, and additionally, is established as a provocation, a transgression in the field of the “right-minded.”
by Equipe IMS
Acclaimed by critics and a popular phenomenon on the internet, Clarice Lispector is considered, internationally, one of the great names in 20th century literature. Mysterious, obscure, revealing, experimental, strangely mystical, or philosophical – how to define the writing of the author of The Hour of the Star? This podcast, conceived and presented by Bruno Cosentino and Eucanaã Ferraz, covers Clarice’s life and work in five episodes, in which they talk to great specialists, professors, and researchers.
by Equipe IMS
Clarice Lispector spent her childhood in Recife, but at the age of 15 she moved with her father and two sisters to Rio de Janeiro. It was in the then capital of Brazil that the writer lived her youth and early adult life: she completed high school, graduated from law school, had her first professional experiences in the press, got married, and in 1943, released her first book Near to the Wild Heart.
by Elizama Almeida
Written in the 1950s, during the period in which she lived in Washington, The Mystery of the Thinking Rabbit was the first children’s book written by Clarice Lispector.
by Equipe IMS
In the 2025 edition of Clarice’s Hour, we will celebrate, through the voices and presentations of kids, the children's story “Laura’s Intimate Life,” published as a book by Clarice Lispector in 1974. In this film, six children retell, act, illustrate, and co-direct the story of Laura the hen, her husband Luís, and their son Hermany in Dona Luísa's henhouse.
by Elizama Almeida
When we had no way of knowing that the hashtag
gratitude would be one of the terms referring to two
strong traits of the future...
