Spaces and Practices of Exclusion: Recife Frio, Som ao Redor and the "Rolezinhos"

• In Event: Narratives of Nationhood, Space and the Body in Retomada and Contemporary Brazilian Cinema

Abstract

This paper will look at the representation of residential segregation, socio-spatial exclusions, and other exclusionary practices in urban geography in the short film Recife Frio (2009) and the full feature Som ao Redor (2013), by Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho. The work will discuss how the two films expose the tensions between the lower-class and the middle-class in shared spaces, such as building complexes, gated communities and shopping malls. For that, this paper will engage into a dialogue with David Sibley’s Geographies of Exclusion (1995), by considering issues of social boundaries and reflecting upon “people who erect the boundaries and those who are excluded by them” (11). In addition, this work will look into the controversy of the “rolezinhos” (flash-mob gatherings in the shopping malls in Brazil in 2013), as a real-life example of the social anxieties represented in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s films.

Author

• Carla A Alves da Silva, University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign