Helena Solberg (born June 17, 1938, in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

) is a Brazilian-born documentarist who, since 1971, has made her career in the United States. She is recognized as the only woman to participate in "

Cinema Novo Cinema Novo (; 'New Cinema'), is a genre and movement of film noted for its emphasis on social equality and intellectualism that rose to prominence in Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s.Dixon & Foster, 293. Cinema Novo formed in response to class ...

" movement in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. In 1983, Solberg received an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

for '' From the Ashes: Nicaragua Today'', documentary on a new society that born of political turmoil in Central America and the role that the U.S. plays in determining its future.

Biography

Helena Solberg was born in

, daughter of a Norwegian father and Brazilian mother, lived for a long time in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, and established herself as a producer and director of documentaries in

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. She began her career from contact with big names of the new movies, as

Carlos Diegues Carlos Diegues (also known as Cacá Diegues; 19 May 1940 – 14 February 2025) was a Brazilian film director, best known as a member of the Cinema Novo movement. He was popularly known for his unconventional, yet intriguing film techniques among ...

and

Arnaldo Jabor Arnaldo Jabor (12 December 1940 – 15 February 2022) was a Brazilian film director and producer, screenwriter, writer, journalist and political pundit for Brazilian television network Rede Globo. Biography He was of Jewish Lebanese descent an ...

, a time when she lived with them during the studies at the

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro The Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (; PUC-Rio) is a Jesuit, Catholic, pontifical university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the joint responsibility of the Catholic Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro and the So ...

. Solberg began in adolescence working as a reporter at the ''Metropolitano'' newspaper and by mastering English and French interviewed important names like the writer

Clarice Lispector Clarice Lispector (, born Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector (; ) December 10, 1920December 9, 1977) was a Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist and short story writer. Her distinctive and innovative works delve into diverse narrative forms, weaving them ...

and also the philosopher

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she ...

and Jean Paul Sartre. Her debut as a filmmaker occurred in 1966 with the

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

''A Entrevista''. In 1969 directed ''Meio-dia'', a fiction about the revolt of students in the classroom, with the context the period of

military dictatorship in Brazil The military dictatorship in Brazil (), occasionally referred to as the Fifth Brazilian Republic, was established on 1 April 1964, after a 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, coup d'état by the Brazilian Armed Forces, with support from the United Stat ...

Caetano Veloso Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso (; born 7 August 1942) is a Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist. Veloso first became known for his participation in the Brazilian musical movement Tropicália, which encompas ...

's music, ''É proibido proibir'' ( It is forbidden to forbid). In the 70s, she took up residence in the

for about 30 years, where she directed several productions, among them: '' From the Ashes: Nicaragua Today'' (1982), which won a

News & Documentary Emmy Award The News & Documentary Emmy Awards, or News & Documentary Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Scien ...

. From the 80s, began to produce a series of documentaries for international TV channels such as

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

, Radio and Television of Portugal,

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney Enter ...

, among others. In 1995, she produced, wrote and directed her first feature film, '' Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business'', a mixture of documentary and fictional recreation from the singer

Carmen Miranda Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha (9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955), known professionally as Carmen Miranda (), was a Portuguese-born Brazilian singer, dancer, and actress. Nicknamed "The Brazilian Bombshell", she was known for her signature ...

's life. With ''Bananas is my business'' she won the Best Films award of the audience, the critic and the jury at the Festival de Brasilia. The film also was awarded with the Golden Hugo for Best documentary at the

Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

and was selected among the 10 best in its category by the critic

Andrew Sarris Andrew Sarris (October 31, 1928 – June 20, 2012) was an American film critic. He was a leading proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism. Early life Sarris was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Greek immigrant parents, Themis (née Kat ...

. Her latest work and first fiction feature film is '' Vida de Menina'', based on the book by Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant, awarded with six prizes at the

Gramado Film Festival The Gramado Film Festival () is an international film festival held annually in the Brazilian city of Gramado, Rio Grande do Sul, since 1973. In 1992, the festival began to award Latin American films produced outside of Brazil. It is the biggest ...

2004: Best Film, Screenplay, Photography, Soundtrack, Art Direction and Best Film by the audience. She has two German grandchildren and a daughter who lives in the United States with the two kids.

Themes

Helena Solberg's works provide examples of feminism in film and struggles with identity. Two of her movies, Carmen Miranda and Vida de Menina show intersections between these two themes. In a
interview with actress Kate Lyra
Solberg describes the character from Vida de Menina as “very transgressive, a girl always testing the limits, always passing judgement on everything and everyone around her and it is in a way, a microcosm of Brazil.” Solberg uses her movies as tools for learning, describing individual stories as examples of larger themes and issues people across Brazil can identify with.

Legacy

Her third film ''The Double Day'' (1975) is often cited as the first feminist film covering Latin America. Her emphasis on diversity is also reflected in her production process, which relies on locally recruited film crews and a female-majority crew in the case of ''The Double Day''. According to Solberg, this encourages her subjects to feel more comfortable during interviews.Solberg-Ladd, Helena. “The View from the United States.” pp. 81–102. Recent film analysis has criticized some of her earlier work, such as ''The Double Day'' for homogenizing Latin America. Many of her films are intended for U.S. audiences and are therefore narrated exclusively in English for U.S. audiences. As a result, few of her early films have been translated into Spanish because of budget constraints.

Selected filmography (director)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Solberg, Helena 1942 births Brazilian film directors Brazilian women film directors Brazilian screenwriters Living people Brazilian people of Norwegian descent Brazilian women screenwriters