Over the last decade Bárbara Wagner (Brazil) and Benjamin de Burca (Ireland/Germany) have produced a series of hybrid musicals about wildly diverse cultural communities in Brazil, Germany, Ireland, France and Canada. Equally at ease working with evangelical Christians in rural Brazil or LGBTQ+ dancers in Recife, with romantic pop artists in Germany or poets and rappers in Toronto, they collaborate closely with their subjects in developing works that straddle fiction and documentary to explore the social and historical roots of each subculture portrayed.
This first programme groups together four films shot in Brazil. Faz que Vai / Set to Go (2016) focuses on Frevo, the dance style associated with carnival, and the ways in which gender and socio-economic issues are articulated in its steps. Entrepreneurship is explored in Estás Vendo Coisas / You Are Seeing Things (2016) and Terremoto Santo / Holy Tremor (2017); in the first filmtwo aspiring pop artists construct their voice, status and identity, whilst the latter portrays the relationship between faith and aspiration in a wave of new Gospel music produced by young evangelists. Finally Swinguerra (2019), commissioned for the Brazilian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, is a bold work of protest, depicting duelling dance groups in an expression of the tensions surrounding the rights of black people, women, queer and transgender groups in the country under Bolsano.
We are delighted to welcome Benjamin de Burca to Glasgow to introduce this screening and discuss the works.
All films captioned for d/Deaf viewers.
