Abstract

Born in Italy in 1921, in an aristocratic family, Carla Civelli integrates the history of the women’s pioneers of cinematographic art in Brazil. Following the footsteps of her brother, Mario, with whom she worked as a reporter in the Second World War, Carla arrived in São Paulo in 1948, where she initially devoted herself to activities as a film editor and stagehand. Acting especially in Brazilian theater and television throughout her career, Carla Civelli made her only film, “Um caso de polícia”, in 1959. We intend to contribute to the visibility of her trajectory, which is in line with the current context of a necessary revisionism of Brazilian’s cinema history, in addition to promoting an analytical look at the audiovisual elements of that film, which, in the middle of the Chanchada’s period, presented itself as a fine parody of Italian neo-realism. In our analysis, we will also call the debate on the very notion of a possible feminine authorship in the historical context in which the filmmaker’s work was carried out.