Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business

When Americans think about Brazil, they usually come up with Carmen Miranda's name--after samba, soccer, and beaches. The story of how this young talented singer/dancer from Rio came to be "packaged" by Hollywood is told with great affection and style in this documentary by Helena Solberg. In watching the film, the viewer is drawn to ask serious questions about the human costs of creating a symbol out of a living person for economic and political reasons.

As the writers of the Women Make Movies catalog put it: "This fascinating film skillfully combines reenactments, interviews with confidants and commentators, and footage from her many films to tell the haunting story of 1940's superstar Carmen Miranda. Charting Miranda's transformation from famed Brazilian singer to Hollywood's first Latina star to independent artist, award-winning Brazilian filmmaker Helena Solberg shows how Miranda's saga exemplifies contradictions in the relationship between Latin America and the United States that persist today. At the convergence of sexual politics, cultural colonialism, and one woman's life, this moving film powerfully explores the complex factors behind the image and life of the 'Tutti-Frutti Woman,' Carmen Miranda."

In August 2004, Helena Solberg's latest film, "Vida de Menina," premiered as the closing night program for the 2004 Gramado Festival of Brazilian and Latin Cinema. Based on the memoirs of Helena Morley, who grew up in Diamantina (MG) in the late 19th century, the child of an English father and a Brazilian mother, the film was one of the festival's real hits.