A beautifully told story using archival footage to explore the life of Grande Otelo, a groundbreaking Black Brazilian actor. Overcoming poverty and racism, he built a stellar career, facing controversy yet using it to challenge prejudice.
Between scenes from his concert in São Paulo's oft-inaccessible Theatro Municipal, rapper and activist Emicida celebrates the rich legacy of Black Brazilian culture.
"Negro em Mim" is an investigative documentary with black artists and thinkers in Brazil today. A portrait of a plural Brazil from the racial discussion promoted by a trip to 6 Brazilian cities. What do the Arts have to say about Black Brazil?
Through clippings, the film draws a narrative line between the construction of racism in Brazil and the United States, having as base the European invasion of the continent, police violence, the genocide of the black people, the massacre of indigenous peoples, religious violence, the criminalization of funk music, structural racism in art and education, the importance of quota policy and the need urgent historical repair as a commitment by the Brazilian state to the black people.
Abdias do Nascimento (March 14, 1914 – May 23, 2011) was a prominent African Brazilian scholar, writer, visual artist, politician, poet, actor, playwright, and Pan-African activist, who created the Black Experimental Theater (1944) and the Black Arts Museum (1950), organized the National Convention of Brazilian Blacks (1946), the First Congress of Brazilian Blacks (1950), and the Third Congress of Black Culture in the Americas (1982). Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo, he was the first Afro-Brazilian member of Congress to champion black people's human and civil rights in the National Legislature, where in 1983 he presented the first Brazilian proposals for affirmative action legislation.