Alumnus William Plotnick '20 Co-Programs Sessão Cinelimite Virtual Film Program

Film and Media Studies alumnus William Plotnick ’20 and Gustavo Menezes co-programmed the Sessão Cinelimite Virtual Film Program, presented by Mostra de Cinema de Gostoso earlier this month.

Cinelimite Inc. (“Limite”) was established in June of 2020. Plotnick is the president and co-founder of the New York City and Bahia-based nonprofit media arts organization, which aims to increase the presence of Brazilian cinema in the US and beyond. Limite provides an online platform for newly translated classic and contemporary Brazilian films. The site also features written and video essays, interviews, top-lists, and podcasts. 

Mostra de Cinema de Gostoso is held in the city of São Miguel do Gostoso, Rio Grande do Norte. Typically, each November, the public is invited to partake in the free, five-day-long festival, which screens recently released Brazilian films on the beach. This year, however, the pandemic necessitated a new virtual format, pushing the festival back to March. 

The Cinelimite session presented three 1968 films that explore military dictatorship from the perspective of the intellectual middle class, which had to contend with the unlikelihood of a popular revolution as well as an increased estrangement from the people at large. The films included Maurício Gomes Leite’s A Vida Provisória, Sérgio Bernardes Filho’s Desesperato, and Gustavo Dahl’s O Bravo Guerreiro. Vladimir Carvalho, who inspired the films’ selection, also gave video testimony. 

Plotnick received his BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2018. After graduating from the School of the Arts with an MA in Film and Media Studies in 2019, he enrolled in New York University’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation MA program. 

He was the festival manager at the Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival from 2018 to 2019, a research and teaching assistant at Columbia University’s Institute of Latin American Studies in 2019, and an advertising specialist at the School of the Arts’ ZOOM-IN Media and Arts Showcase. He has also worked as a freelance video editor and archivist. 

Currently, Plotnick serves as an archivist at New York University, archivist and projectionist at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, and a graduate assistant at the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education Network (DPOE-N).