Engaging Cinematic Turns in Brazil

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel seeks to critically examine the trajectory and contributions of the recent turns in Black Cinema and Genre Cinema in Brazil. The papers connect aesthetic and narrative innovations made by particular directors with critical analysis of the ways that racial, economic, gendered, and sexuality-based inequality are explored in given films. Jeremy L. Lehnen examines the development of the Brazilian horror film industry in the 1960s and 70s, and shows how the films of such directors as José Mojica Marins and others connected with Boca do Lixo cinema served as allegorical depictions of social anxieties related to masculinity, sexuality, gender roles, and socio-political violence. Leslie L. Marsh focuses on the recent (re)emergence of Black Cinema in Brazil articulated by new generation of black directors, screenwriters, and actors that seek to represent and reflect upon Afro-Brazilian experiences in ways that both critique and move beyond stereotypical depictions of the black male body, seen in such films as Bróder (Jeferson De) and Branco sai, preto fica (Adirley Queirós). Andrew C. Rajca examines the recent iteration of genre films in Brazil in what he calls the “speculative cinema” of Juliana Rojas in Sinfonia da necrópole—which appropriates elements of Genre Cinema without strictly conforming to these tropes—while also offering a critique of the material effects of capitalism and real-estate speculation in São Paulo. Film scholar Alfredo Luiz Suppia will serve as discussant for the panel, offering a critical response to the papers and questions to consider in discussion.

Sub Track

• Film, Performance, and Culture

Session Organizer

• Leslie L Marsh, Georgia State University

Chair

• Andrew C Rajca, University of South Carolina

Discussant

• Alfredo Suppia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)

Individual Presentations

• "Brasil Num Caixão": Masculinity, Socio-Political Anxieties and the Brazilian Horror Film - Jeremy L Lehnen, Brown University

• Mapping the (re)emergence of Black Cinema in Brazil: "Bróder" (2010) and "Branco sai, preto fica" (2014) - Leslie L Marsh, Georgia State University

• Speculative Cinematic Spaces: Genre Films and the Urban Processes of Capitalism in "Sinfonia da necrópole" - Andrew C Rajca, University of South Carolina