Barravento was film director Glauber Rocha’s first feature-length film and deals mainly with issues related to religious syncretism, oppression, racism and resistance. The film features actor Antonio Pitanga in the lead role as Firmino, a fisherman who returns to his community and tries to raise his fellow townspeople’s awareness concerning their social condition and the exploitation they suffer. All the representativity of this film, in everything from its script to its aesthetics, served as inspiration for Barravento Novo (2017), by Eder Santos and Bruce Yonemoto, the main work in the exhibition, which occupies the space of the attached pavilion, in a large, immersive video installation. The film, whose premiere screening was held at Tate Modern (England), in 2017, was conceived with actress Camila Pitanga’s performance in mind, aiming to highlight Brazil’s postcolonial past, through an analysis that is more attentive to the current context and the social and psychological situation of people today. As an ode to the work of Glauber Rocha, Barravento Novo not only updates the political message of the Cinema Novo director, but also deals with issues related to cultural mythology and national identity, which are as relevant now as ever.
The film Barravento Novo is a milestone in Eder Santos’ career, and according to the curator Luiz Gustavo Carvalho it epitomizes the hybridism the artist has worked with since the outset, since he has always worked to break down the barriers between visual arts and cinema. In this film, actress Camila Pitanga plays the two main roles: that of Cota (in the original film, played by Luiza Maranhão) and that of Firmino himself (in the original film, played by her father), through a dialogue with Glauber’s original scenes. The actress herself chose to play both of the leading characters, who form a couple in the original film. Besides the confrontation of generations, through the moments between father and daughter, the directors also compare the technologies, since the original scenes shot on 35mm film appear at the same time, in screen-in-screen format, alongside the current ones shot in digital 4K. Barravento Novo also features Camila Pitanga’s daughter, Antônia Peixoto, singing the film’s opening song, as well as actor Antônio Pitanga himself, at the end. The directors consider Barravento Novo also as an homage to the actor, today aged 84, for his contribution to national cinema, being the first black protagonist in Brazilian history.
