#3: Ines Aisengart Menezes (Brazilian Film Heritage)

Lecture

The biggest crisis ever experienced by the Cinemateca Brasileira in 2020-2021 emphasises the systemic problem of audiovisual heritage in Brazil. What are the causes and consequences of this crisis? How does preservation fit into the audiovisual industry? How are Brazil's economic, social, cultural, human, and environmental problems depicted in moving images, and what is preserved?

Introduction by Giovanna Fossati (Chief Curator at Eye and Professor of Film Heritage at the University of Amsterdam). Q&A in collaboration with the Master students of the This is Film! class at the University of Amsterdam.

Screening: Three short films from Brazil

Tudo que é apertado rasga (Pressed, ripped apart) (Fábio Rodrigues Filho, BR 2019, 28’)

What does Brazilian cinema tell us? What does Brazilian cinema tell us about black actresses and actors? Pressed, Ripped Apart makes use of archival sources to retrieve the trajectory of black actresses and actors who, between absences and delimited presences, between the fallacy of a racial democracy – based on the harmony among Brazil's diverse identities – and erasure of identity, strain the Brazilian audiovisual history and above all, our own history.

Alma no Olho (Soul in the Eye) (Zózimo Bulbul, BR 1974, 11’)

This film reflects on black identity in Brazil through body language, focusing on the African origin, European colonisation, and liberation through cultural identity.

Travessia (Safira Moreira, BR 2017, 5’)

In an intimate and poetic visual essay, Travessia searches for photographic records of black families. While exploring personal histories, the film gradually adopts a critical stance regarding the stigmatisation and near absence of portrayals of black people. Finally, affecting us with a tender visual counter-narrative of what remained unseen.

Guest

Ines Aisengart Menezes is an audiovisual preservationist with 20 years of professional experience in the audiovisual market and the cultural heritage of Brazil. She holds a Bachelor in Film Studies (Fluminense Federal University - UFF, Brazil) and obtained her Master in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image (Universiteit van Amsterdam - UvA, the Netherlands). After her Master programme, Ines worked at Eye Filmmuseum for one year (2015) before moving on to the Cinemateca Brasileira (2016-2020). She was the co-curator of the audiovisual preservation symposium of the film festival CineOP (2017-2021). Since February 2022, Ines has been working in the Archives Program at Witness, an international organization that promotes the use of video and technology to protect and defend human rights.