In the vibrant heart of Brazil, where every corner exudes a symphony of sights, sounds, and colors, visual artist Isabela Costa finds her muse. Rio de Janeiro, a city that dances on the edge of tradition and modernity, has been the cradle of inspiration for countless artists across generations. Yet, for Costa, it’s more than just a source of inspiration; it’s a pivotal character in her artistic narrative—a place where her identity as an artist was both discovered and nurtured.
Isabela Costa’s journey into the arts was almost predestined. Growing up in Brazil—a country she describes as “a feast for all five senses”—Costa was enchanted by the rich tapestry of its culture from a young age. From the soothing melodies of Bossa Nova to the captivating allure of drawing, her passion for artistry knew no bounds. It was within this cultural kaleidoscope that Costa’s artistic persona began to take shape.
The bustling streets of Rio de Janeiro, particularly the trendy neighborhoods of Botafogo and Laranjeiras, are alive with creativity. Here, amidst cheap beer and vibrant street art, young art students like Costa found not just inspiration but also camaraderie. These neighborhoods are less places on a map and more canvases for self-expression—an aspect that profoundly influenced Costa’s early works.
Her reverence for Brazilian culture is evident in her selection of favorite art museums in Rio. The Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), with its grandeur and diverse exhibitions ranging from visual arts to cinema and theater, provided Costa with an expansive view of global artistic expressions. Meanwhile, the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) offered a deep dive into contemporary artworks that challenged traditional boundaries—something that resonates deeply with Costa’s own approach to visual storytelling.
However, it is perhaps at newer institutions like The Rio Museum of Art (MAR) where Costa finds herself most at home. MAR’s dedication to showcasing works that reflect Rio’s cultural diversity speaks directly to her experiences as an artist navigating through various narratives within one city. Similarly, the Moreira Salles Institute stands out for its commitment to preserving rare films—a resource invaluable to a filmmaker keen on exploring different storytelling modalities.
Costa’s explorations within these museums have not only broadened her understanding but have also cemented her love for cinematic expression. This affection towards filmmaking culminated in short film productions that cast Rio itself as an indelible character within her stories. Her first notable work ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ ventures beyond conventional storytelling by incorporating the city’s dynamic essence as a backdrop—long before she planned on leaving Brazil.
Her subsequent projects further delve into this intricate relationship between setting and narrative. Filming on a secluded beach outside Rio during the pandemic allowed Costa to explore themes of isolation and connection against nature’s untamed beauty. Meanwhile, her MFA thesis presents an introspective look at two queer friends facing a quarter-life crisis amidst Rio’s chaotic charm—an endeavor that showcases her ability to weave personal tales with universal truths.
Drawing inspiration from renowned Brazilian figures such as novelist Lygia Fagundes Telles and musicians Caetano Veloso and Nara Leao has enabled Costa to blend various artistic elements seamlessly into her work. Filmmakers Ana Carolina and Rogerio Sganzerla’s bold approaches also echo through her films—highlighting how different mediums can coalesce to tell compelling stories.
For those interested in following Isabela Costa’s journey or exploring her work further can visit her website at isabelacostafilm.com/ or follow her Instagram @isa.chromatic for behind-the-scenes glimpses into her creative process.
In essence, Isabela Costa embodies the spirit of Brazilian artistry—a fusion of past influences and current realities molded into unique expressions capable of captivating audiences globally. As she continues to chart new territories within visual arts against the backdrop of Rio de Janeiro’s eclectic scenes, one thing remains clear: Isabela’s narrative is interwoven with Brazil’s cultural fabric—an inseparable bond that defines not just who she is as an artist but also how she sees the world around her.
-What neighborhoods do artists hang out in in Rio?
My artist friends in Rio tend to be genuinely unpretentious in their social activities. We sometimes meet each other for a beer right after a beach day, still wearing our flip-flops stuffed with sand. One of the most bohemian and young neighborhoods in Rio would certainly be Botafogo. It has a traditional history in the city but college students and art lovers in general ended up building up a community there. On the same side of the pavement, you can find a small cinema dedicated to arthouse films, the most beloved bookstore in Rio, and a bunch of small bars, one right next to the other, where people sit in plastic chairs and drink modest-priced beers while discussing arts, politics, and culture. Laranjeiras is another part of Rio that became very dear to artists. In there, they have a very traditional acting studio called CAL, some alternative bars, and it is also a very peaceful neighborhood, with a landscape filled with ancestral trees and many species of birds making a beautiful paradox to the urban scenario. Another highlight of Laranjeiras is a street fair that takes place at the weekends, in which you can buy fresh fruits, organic vegetables, and even works by local artists. You can also sit and grab a bite from a delicious Brazilian snack called pastel while you watch as families of all kinds of formats walk around and share the joyful atmosphere.
-Who are your favorite Brazilian artists and why?
Lygia Fagundes Telles was a brilliant novelist and writer. The main point of attraction her work exerts on me is her ability to be visceral yet so delicate in the ways she described the joys, pains, and sensations of being a teenage girl in the context of a Brazil I did not experience but feel nostalgic about when I encounter her richness of description. Both “The Marble Dance” and “As Meninas” were decisive works in how I understood the feminine spectrum in a narrative sense;
Ana Carolina is a Brazilian screenwriter and filmmaker who was courageous enough to present an unapologetically feminist work within the very conservative context of ’70s Brazil, when we barely had women making movies, and the ones who did were mostly independent and would stay in obscurity for a long time after. “Everything is Fine” and “With the Heart in the Hands” are canons in Brazilian film history as they adopt narrative and technical experimentations that are still avant-garde to this day. All the formal strategies serve narratives that criticize the patriarchy by making films that are radically deviant from the male gaze.
Caetano Veloso and Nara Leao are unarguably gods in the pantheon of MPB (Brazilian Popular Music). Veloso was a key part of the group that gave birth to a vanguard cultural movement named Tropicalia, which had a manifesto fundamentally based on the intersection between popular and high cultures; Influences from outside countries, such as electric guitars, mixed with the traditional Brazilian rhythms; Juxtaposing cultures from all over the globe to the Brazilian cultural ethos. All of these guidelines would function as a way to create a new national identity for Brazil, a heterogenous one, which was comprehensive to all the different nuances that composed what we understood as the cultural foundations of Brazilian culture. This resonates a lot with what I believe as an artist who absorbed forms of knowledge from another part of the Globe but still wants to make films that resonate with my country and my people.
As for Nara Leao, she was one of the founding mothers of the Bossa Nova movement. Her writing and the unique ways she incorporated various instruments into it are way too ethereal to be described in words. As cliché as it might sound, Leao’s music is something to be felt, it gets understood through the senses. Besides all her artistic geniality, she did an album with tracks that became resistance anthems amongst the Brazilian dictatorship, a horrendous period in our history which began concomitantly with the release of the Magnum Opus of Nara, the album “Opiniao de Nara”, precisely in 1964. Leao will always be a reference as an artist who would associate artistic excellence with a strong commitment to social issues.
Finally, I will mention Rogerio Sganzerla, a screenwriter and filmmaker who occupies a very dear position in my references. Sganzerla was the precursor of a new wave movement called “Marginal Cinema”. According to the Marginal Cinema beliefs, the role of a filmmaker was to be where the real people of Brazil were: In the margins of the society. They should portray the reality of our Country as raw and real as it was, without all the filters and fairytales that dictated the narratives sponsored by the few big studios and companies we had back then. One should not wait for money from a third party to do their art, they should do it with the resources they possess, working alongside people who share a similar desire to bring representation to underrepresented groups which were the majority of the population. Working with unsophisticated and very few material resources increased their capacity to make inventions with what they had. The final result didn’t aim for perfection. Instead, it was committed with honesty and authorship. This kind of creative freedom resulted in revolutionary camera shots, ultra-realistic dialogues, and a legacy in how the principles and dynamics of filmmaking were perceived and performed in Brazil. Sganzerla was not only a voice for the voiceless; He mastered his own unique voice.
-For your own artwork, which films or photos were shot in Brazil?
The first real production I ever made was when I won a grant during undergrad to produce a film in Rio. It is called I Think We’re Alone Now and curiously has the city as a predominant character within the narrative’s structure. I say “curiously” because I wasn’t even planning to move back then. Also, the second production throughout my MFA journey was shot in a small beach city on the outskirts of Rio during the pandemic year I went back to Brazil, and, finally, my MFA thesis is about two queer friends who experience their quarter-life crisis with the city of Rio de Janeiro working as a strong background to their story.
