
Laerte Coutinho
Acting
Biography
Laerte Coutinho, known mainly as simply Laerte, is a Brazilian cartoonist, comic strip artist and screenwriter. Assigned male at birth, she came out in 2009 as a crossdresser and later as a transgender woman. Laerte has collaborated with several publications such as Balão, O Pasquim, and Chiclete com Banana magazines and draws regularly for Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. She has created several comic strip characters, such as Piratas do Tietê (The Pirates of Tietê River). Since the mid 2000s, Laerte's strips became more philosophical and less humour-focused, abandoning fixed characters.
Born: June 10, 1951
Place of Birth: São Paulo, Brazil
Known For

Consideração do Poema
Carlos Drummond de Andrade's poetry is read by exponents of Brazilian culture, such as Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Adriana Calcanhoto, Fernanda Torres, Marilia Pera, Antonio Cicero and others.

Super Oldboy
Bil is an elderly man who works as an office boy for a firm in São Paulo, as he does not pay for a bus ticket and takes a preferential line at the bank. One day he gets involved in an unusual bank robbery.

Bob Spit: We Do Not Like People
Bob Spit, a comic book character, lives in a post-apocalyptic desert inside the mind of his creator, the legendary Brazilian cartoonist Angeli. When Angeli decides to kill off Bob, the old punk leaves this wasteland and faces his creator.

Laughter of Others
There are limits to jokes? What is the politically incorrect humor? A joke has the power to offend? It is these issues that 'Laughter of Others' discusses interviewing personalities such as comedians Danilo Gentili and Rafinha Bastos, cartoonist Laerte and Congressman Jean Wyllys, among others. The documentary delves into the world of Stand Up Comedy to discuss the fine line between comedy and offense, between legal and what creates endless lawsuits.

Lampião da Esquina: Lighting Up Brazilian Press
Inspired by the US paper “Gay Sunshine”, in April of 1978 appeared in Brazil – during the dictatorship – the newspaper “O Lampião”, depicting the point of view of gays on various issues, including sexuality. A group of journalists and writers from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo joined the project, fueling a publication that paved the way for the press at the time, addressing controversial issues at the period, such as racism, abortion, drugs and prostitution.

Tie and Red Nail
Several characters realize their personal way to build their own identity from the choice of genre. Transsexual, transgender, crossdressing – the defining of terminologies different ways of looking at yourself are constantly rising, portraying a universe of possibilities, expanding the boundaries of the possible and permitted.

Laerte-se
In this film, Laerte conjugates the body in the feminine, and scrutinizes concepts and prejudices. Not in search of an identity, but in search of un-identities. Laerte creates and sends creatures to face reality in the fictional world of comic strips as a vanguard of the self. And, on the streets, the one who becomes the fiction of a real character. Laerte, of all the bodies, and of none, complicates all binaries. In following Laerte, this documentary chooses to clothe the nudity beyond the skin we inhabit.

Dossiê Rê Bordosa
Envy? Ego issues? Malice? In 1987, Angeli, one of the most important cartoonists in Brazil, coldly murdered one of his most famous creations, the underground diva Rê Bordosa.

Reading Again Graúna
The documentary reconstructs the history of Graúna, one of the most famous comic characters in Brazil during the '70s. Analyzing creator Henfil's usage of this poor, little, female blackbird to criticize the social inequities and censorship in Brazil of the time, testimonies from family and fellow cartoonists shed light into why "Reading Again Graúna" is still relevant today.

The City of Pirates
A film director faces a complex situation in the production of his new film: Laerte, the protagonist of the story, begins to renegade her former characters, the Pirates of the Tietê. Lost in this situation and determined to be faithful to his whims after seeing the approach of death, the director decides to tell his drama mixing his persona with the story, creating a chaotic labyrinth between fiction and real life.
Filmography
as Archive footage
as Self
as Laerte / Madame L (voice)
as Laerte Coutinho (voice)
as Herself
as Herself
as Apresentadora
as Herself
as Herself
as Laerte Coutinho (voice)