Women’s memories of political violence in Brazilian cinema

Heise, T. (2020) Women’s memories of political violence in Brazilian cinema. In: Maseda García, R., Gámez Fuentes, M. J. and Zecchi, B. (eds.) Gender-Based Violence in Latin America and Iberian Cinemas. Series: Global gender. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY, pp. 26-42. ISBN 9781138349476 (doi: 10.4324/9780429436307-4)

Abstract

It has been argued that in the recent era of Brazil’s reckoning with its dictatorial past, the perspective of women has remained largely on the margins. The films of Lúcia Murat, Emilia Silveira and Flávia Castro, among others, help to rectify this marginalization by placing women’s experiences at the centre of attention. Their films challenge dominant discourses that typically portray women as passive victims of masculine institutions (the police and the armed forces) to highlight, instead, new themes and perspectives, including the active participation of women as revolutionaries and their ongoing commitment to memory politics. Some of these films also shed light on the gendered nature of repression as they suggest how the forms of violence adopted by the state responded to wider anxieties and expectations concerning the place of women in society. By means of close textual readings and personal interviews with the directors, I address two main questions: What specific contributions have women film-makers made to reconstructing memories of the dictatorship in Brazil? How does the gender of the film-maker matter when addressing the way state violence is remembered? In order to do that I focus on five films: Que bom te ver viva and A memória que me contam (Lúcia Murat, 1989 and 2012), Diário de uma busca (Flávia Castro, 2010), Vou contar para os meus filhos (Tuca Siqueira, 2012) and Setenta (Emilia Silveira, 2013).

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Heise, Dr Tatiana
• Authors: Heise, T.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > Hispanic Studies
• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 9781138349476
• Published Online: 12 May 2020