The Short Film in Brazilian Democracy

Abstract

This paper presents a review of independent cinema in the period of democracy building in Brazil from 1985 to 2016, a time span with films that portray a democratic project of emergence of erased identities in national cinema. The place occupied by black people, women and the poor assumed a tense status in this new context. The Day Dorival Faced the Guard by Jorge Furtado (1986), for example, chronicles the strategic and shrewd thinking of a black inmate in order to be able to take a shower after ten days in solitary confinement by order of no one knows who. Kbela by Yasmim Thainá (2015), on the other hand, is a black woman’s film of humble origin. The narrative shows the transformation of five women who overcome racial prejudice by discovering their own identity, color, culture, ancestry. In the two films it is possible to identify a trajectory that transforms the figuration of freedom of action.

Keywords
Independent cinema; Short films; New visibilities; Democratic period