Contemporary Cinemas in Portuguese: Brazil, Portugal, Luso-Africa

Catalog description

Spanning five continents and three oceans, filmmaking in Portuguese is among the most wide-spread in the world–but also the most difficult to watch, given the mutual remoteness of shooting locations and audiences, making for only a relatively small market share. Between East Timor, Mozambique, Brazil, Macau, and Portugal, no single, unified film culture exists but rather an archipelago of cinemas shot through with multiple Asian, African and Amerindian languages and cultures. And yet, film offers us an insight into this worldwide web of histories of colonization, revolution, migration and diaspora –themes that the Brazilian Cinema Novo of the 60s and 70s had already explored and that new African and Portuguese cinemas have revisited in recent years: racial and sexual difference, transnational migration, or the legacies of Empire and slavery, among others. Films studied include: Como Era Gostoso o Meu Francês (How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Brazil 1971), Sambizanga(Sarah Maldoror, Angola 1973), Nhá Fala(My Voice, Flora Gomes, Guinea-Bissau/Cabo Verde 2002), O Herói (The Hero, Zézé Gamboa, Angola 2004), Virgem Margarida(Virgin Margarita, Licínio Azevedo, Mozambique 2012), Cavalo Dinheiro(Horse Money, Pedro Costa, Portugal 2014) and Bacurau(Kléber Mendonça Filho, Brazil 2019). The course will be taught in English but students and speakers of Portuguese will be offered additional critical readings in the language.