Lecture on This is Film! Film Heritage in Practice series of the Eye Filmmuseum, in April 2022, on Brazilian Film Heritage.
The biggest crisis ever experienced by the Cinemateca Brasileira in 2020-2021 emphasises the systemic problem of audiovisual heritage in Brazil. What are the causes and consequences of this crisis? How does preservation fit into the audiovisual industry? How are Brazil’s economic, social, cultural, human, and environmental problems depicted in moving images, and what is preserved?
Introduction by Giovanna Fossati (Chief Curator at Eye and Professor of Film Heritage at the University of Amsterdam). Q&A in collaboration with the Master students of the This is Film! class at the University of Amsterdam.
Screening: Three short films from Brazil
Tudo que é apertado rasga (Pressed, ripped apart) (Fábio Rodrigues Filho, BR 2019, 28’)
What does Brazilian cinema tell us? What does Brazilian cinema tell us about black actresses and actors? Pressed, Ripped Apart makes use of archival sources to retrieve the trajectory of black actresses and actors who, between absences and delimited presences, between the fallacy of a racial democracy – based on the harmony among Brazil’s diverse identities – and erasure of identity, strain the Brazilian audiovisual history and above all, our own history.
Alma no Olho (Soul in the Eye) (Zózimo Bulbul, BR 1974, 11’)
This film reflects on black identity in Brazil through body language, focusing on the African origin, European colonisation, and liberation through cultural identity.
Travessia (Safira Moreira, BR 2017, 5’)
In an intimate and poetic visual essay, Travessia searches for photographic records of black families. While exploring personal histories, the film gradually adopts a critical stance regarding the stigmatisation and near absence of portrayals of black people. Finally, affecting us with a tender visual counter-narrative of what remained unseen.
Presentation, with a rectified slide:
The above slide was not presented in April, finalized just after, and shared here.
An extensive but not complete group of researchers and scholars investigating black cinema and audiovisual preservation in Brazil.
Slide compiled with the generous help of Daniela Giovana Siqueira and Talita Arruda.
Ines Aisengart Menezes 