Also Directed by Adirley Queirós
The city of Brasilia hoped to become, from its very architecture, the expression of modern urban conception and an egalitarian society. However, neither the workers hired to pursue this project, nor the constant migratory flow that took place from the beginning, fitted in the government’s plan. In 1971, it began what was known as the “Campaign to Eradicate Invaders”. Together with other locals, the director reflects on the history, the transformations and the future of this place where the hypocritical official jingle “A cidade é uma só!” is no longer heard.
Disguised as dystopian science fiction, which crosses references of George Miller and JC Ballard, Once There Was Brazilia proposes a reflection on the current Brazilian political and social situation, concretely from the process of dismissal of President Dilma Rousseff, rehearsing an alternative future for Brazil. As the political capital of the country, and especially as one of the most symbolic utopias of the Brazilian twentieth century, the city of Brazilia shares the protagonism with a couple of renegades who survive by wandering marginally waiting for personal and collective redemption. To the fourth film, after the multi-award-winning White Out, Black In (2014), Adirley Queirós returns to explore the vicissitudes of Brazilian society.
During the passage of the World Cup of Brazil through Brasilia, we accompanied Maninho, a former professional football player who today works as a street walker, selling bottles of water and flags of the national teams.
Shots fired inside a club frequented by black Brazilians in the outskirts of Brasilia leave two men wounded. A third man arrives from the future in order to investigate the incident and prove that the fault lies in the repressive society.
A documentary about football players in the low divisions of Brazilian football.
The struggle of a small group of blacksmiths trapped between keeping a long going strike with claims for better fees and the necessity of getting back to work when there's no money left for basic necessities.
A documentary about rap artists from Ceilândia, a satellite-city of Brazil capital, Brasilia. The film portrait the struggle of the lives of the rapers and makes a parallel with the violent building of the city designed to settle the outcast from Brasilia after its completion.
The trajectory of Nelson Prudêncio, the black boy from Lins, who became an athlete only at the age of 20 and became one of the protagonists of the epic final of the triple jump at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968, the biggest that the sport has ever seen.
Also Directed by Joana Pimenta
Moving and mysterious, Joana Pimenta’s An Aviation Field juxtaposes the natural and the manmade as it links the great utopian modernist project of Brasilia to the volcanic crater in Fogo, Cape Verde, and offers speculative futures for a troubling past.
For Dreaming the Dark: hands that see, eyes that touch, Ana Vaz invited artists and filmmakers whose work trust cinema’s capacity to transform relationships between the body and the camera to propose works that will engage with both perception and embodiment. Could cinema be an art of embodiment? By what rituals and actions could vision become tactile?
The rapid turning of a light draws a circle. In the space bound by its line unravels an archive of postcards sent between the island of Madeira and the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique. The figures carved into the Knife by the Sap of the Banana Trees circulates between a fictional colonial memory, and science-fiction.