Visions of Resistance: Recent Films by Brazilian Women Directors

Co-presented by Cinema Tropical

Throughout Latin America, women struggle to crack the glass ceiling. Yet despite historical prejudice and neoconservative backlash, a new generation of Brazilian women have broken through, producing bold, politically engaged, formally adventurous works of cinema. Visions of Resistance: Recent Films by Brazilian Women Directors spotlights recent documentary and hybrid films, with a particular focus on the lives of black Brazilians.

Both Fabiana Assis’s eloquent documentary, West Park, and the collectively produced Tell This to Those Who Say We’ve Been Defeated center on the homeless (sem teto) movement. But while the former does so through a personal narrative of trauma, the latter uses a more distanced approach of coordinated stealth action. A number of films, such as Grace Passô’s Wandering Flesh, Glenda Nicácio and Ary Rosa’s Coffee with Cinnamon, and Everlane Morães’s Pattaki hint at otherworldly realms evocative of Afro-descendant traditions. Others attend closely to the ins-and-outs of social protest, as in Victória Álvares and Quentin Delaroche’s documentary feature, Block, or to the historical black Brazilian communities, as in Amaranta César’s lyrical short, Mangrove. Meanwhile, Cris Lyra’s Quebramar and Juliana Rojas’s The Passage of the Comet address the brutality of women’s lives with a sense of cosmic and mythic wonder. Lastly, in Elena Meirelles and Livia de Paiva’s Tremor Iê the ultra conservative backlash faced by LGBTQ communities and widespread social unrest takes a dystopian turn.

Organized by film critic Ela Bittencourt, who wrote the introduction and film descriptions and will introduce all screenings.