SPORTS> Off the Pitch
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SPORTS> Off the Pitch
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Brazil profits from soccer to promote culture in Germany
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-06-07 09:23 Brazil is taking advantage of the popularity of its national football team to promote the country's culture in Germany. The Copa da Cultura (Culture Cup) program is comprised of more than 200 Brazilian cultural events held in Germany mostly during the World Cup. The events include music concerts, films festivals, dancing balls, plays, art exhibits, dance performances and lectures.
Culture Cup is a project of the Brazilian government in partnership with a pool of German culture institutions, such as the House of Cultures of the World (HKW) and Goethe-Institute, which are together investing a total of 30 million US dollars in the effort. Sergio Sa Leitao, the official of Brazil's Ministry of Culture in charge of the project, on Tuesday said the primary goal of the program is economic. He believes Culture Cup will lead to an increase on exports of Brazilian cultural products to Germany and stimulate Germans to visit Brazil. "Culture Cup is a program to incentive exports," he said. Sa Leitao mentioned a similar program to promote Brazilian culture in France last year contributed to a 36 percent rise on the number of French tourists visiting Brazil in the first quarter of 2006, in relation to the same period in 2005. He believes Culture Cup will also have an impact on other countries, because Germany will host during the World Cup thousands of journalists from around the globe. The presence of the world media combined with the popularity of the Brazilian team makes the World Cup a unique opportunity to promote the country's culture, added the official. Culture Cup opened with events in the Brazilian embassy in Berlin early this year. But the core of the program began with a music concert of the Emmy Award winner Gilberto Gil in HKWs auditorium, in Berlin, on May 25, which attracted more than one thousand fans. The concert was the first of a long series of events that are being held in HKW. The cultural center, which is located by the landmark building of Germans parliament Reichstag, is the epicenter of Culture Cup and is featuring other nine concerts, six art exhibits, five dancing balls, 11 dance performances and a 19-days long festival of Brazilian recent and classic films. The program will be particularly intense during the World Cups period (June 9 to July 9). Gil will hold on June 12 another music concert, this time on the lawn in front of HKW. Right after the concert, the Brazilian film festival of HKW will pre-open with the exhibition of Pele Forever, a documentary about the football star. Pele himself is expected to be present at the screening. The official open of the film festival will take place on June 15 with the premiere in Germany of director Bruno Silveira's Two Sons of Francisco, the Brazilian film with the highest attendance in Brazil for the past 15 years. Silveira will debate the film with the public. In the following evening, composer legend Chico Buarque and singer Martnalia will hold a concert in the HKWs auditorium. Along with Gil, Buarque is one of the most acclaimed musicians in Brazil and abroad. Tickets for Chicos concert are sold out. On the exhibit front, HKW will present Tropicalia: A Revolution in the Brazilian Culture that focuses on the artistic scene in the country in the late 1960s. The cultural center will also feature works of contemporary Brazilian artists, such as Lucia Koch, Carla Guagliardi and Nelson Lerner. |
