- Brazil
I TRAVEL BECAUSE I HAVE TO, I COME BACK BECAUSE I LOVE YOU
Synopsis
José Renato is a geologist. He is sent for thirty days to the Sertão in north-eastern Brazil to survey possible routes for a canal that is to divert water from the region’s only major river. He drives, measures, takes notes – and speaks, in voice-over, less and less about rock and more and more about the woman he has left behind, and the love that has slipped away from him. The abandoned villages, red-light streets and marketplaces he passes through mirror his state: emptiness, desertion, isolation. “I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You” (Brazil 2009, original title “Viajo porque preciso, volto porque te amo”) by Marcelo Gomes and Karim Aïnouz is a road movie made up of landscape images and a single voice.
Between documentary and fiction, between travel diary and elegy, the film grew out of material the two directors had gathered over years of travelling through the north-east. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2010.
Festival
Shown at the 2010 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
