The first big name in the cinema of São Paulo. In 1910, José Medina (from Sorocaba, 1894 – 1980) was just a projectionist in the Votorantim works in his native city. In association with photographer Gilberto Rossi, he founded Rossi Filme in São Paulo in 1919, specialising at first in newsreels and documentaries. With Rossi taking care of the technical side, Medina made a series of short features which were simple in concept but ingenious as narrative and visually expressive. Two of them, perhaps because they were still physically in existence at the time, were commonly cited as being amongst the best made in Brazil during the period of the silent film: Exemplo Regenerador (Example of Renewal, 1919) and Fragmentos da Vida (Fragments of Life, based on a tale by the American O. Henry, 1929). During this period, he directed three feature-length films: Perversidade (Perverseness, written and filmed during a week in 1920), Do Rio a São Paulo Para Casar (From Rio to São Paulo for Marriage, 1922) and Gigi (1925).
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