Tag Archives: Documentary

Thoughts about dominant representations of Brazilian women

“Fragmentos de uma Observação Participativa/Fragments of a Participant Observation”, is a documentary film exploring and playing with the stereotype of the Brazillian woman in Portugal. Following the everyday life of a young anthropologist, the film leads us through dance floors, university auditoriums and the Lisbon underground to the kitchen table, where Paula shares with her two flatmates experiences of embarrassing fieldwork experiences, doubts about love affairs and future projects. As the trailer suggests, over laughter, tears and glasses of wine the characters deconstruct hegemonic representations and invite us to the same.

The film is the first part of a set of three stories, which will be combined in “Triângulo/Triangle” a long-feature film exploring the connections across the Atlantic through tales of migrants living in three key cities: Lisbon (Portugal), Luanda (Angola) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Local directors  explore the reconfigured power relations connecting these countries through the lived experience of those who circulate between them. Engaging with imagined proximities and objective misunderstandings feeding the relationship between the three lusophone contexts, the project explores the flip-side of myths such as the “European dream”, “the new African Eldorado” and a “samba and football” Brazil. At the same time, it contemplates ingrained complicity as it tries to identify new identities and sketch cultural criss-crossings, (dis)encounters and porosities. More information about the project here (in Portuguese).

“Fragments of a Participant Observation” was first screened in the independent film festival Indie Lisboa and has been in movie theatres throughout Portugal (Braga, at Theatro Circo;  Coimbra at Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente and Lisbon, at Nimas). The Association Zona Franca hosted a special screening followed by a debate with the protagonist and the film directors on July 2nd, 2013.

Documentary, 2013, 35′, Video
Writer: Pedro Pinho
Photography: Vasco Viana
Sound: Rúben Costa
Montage: Filipa Reis, João Miller Guerra
With: Monique Montenegro, Paula C. Togni, Verônica Silva
Producer: Filipa Reis, Marta Lança
Production: Vende-se Filmes