Writer
Like any industrious coastal town or city, Rio de Janeiro's port region has always been a hub for the confluence of cultures, nationalities and identities. Since 2013, it has also formed the basis of a research project for filmmaker Julia De Simone. Her third feature-length film – which was supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund in 2014 – shifts away from straightforward documentary and towards a more fictionalised form as it presents the story of Muanza, a woman born in the Kingdom of Kongo in the early nineteenth century and trafficked to Brazil, who awakens to find herself in the present, roaming the streets of Rio’s rapidly changing port region, known as ‘Pequena Africa’, or Little Africa.
Director
Maria, a young black woman born in a quilombo in the interior of the state, is a quota holder at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His mother, Francisca, lives his life cutting sugar cane near the quilombo. The two exchange messages to kill the homesick and reflect on the end of a social and economic era.
