Translator: Themis Scalco Reviewer: Claudia Sander
I'm a moviemaker.
You'll say, "Moviemaker? With that hair, that face?"
I've even put on a nice coat to look more like one.
(Laughter)
These are things I hear when I tell people, "I'm a moviemaker."
I go to places, "What do you do?" "I'm a moviemaker."
There's this thing of having to be something, to have a title.
I'm from Rio de Janeiro, as you may have noticed by my accent.
But not from that Rio you know about
where we can almost hear Bossa Nova music, the Christ statue,
the Sugar Loaf, The Redeemer, Copacabana's walkway,
the beaches, Ipanema, Leblon, soaps by Manoel Carlos and all.
(Laughter)
I come from another Rio de Janeiro:
the Rio that is almost the opposite of all of this.
It's the Rio de Janeiro of Baixada Fluminense.
I don't know if anybody knows it...
Ana was born in Nova Iguaçu.
There's another partner from Nova Iguaçu, I mean, from the Baixada.
Baixada is definitely a stigmatized place.
When somebody gets to Rio people ask, "Where is it? Do we eat it?"
They have no clue where it is.
"Ah, there are lots of killings there, right?"
"Gee, all pedophiles live there."
"Gee, many rapists live there, too, their home is there," and so on.
(Laughter)
So, Baixada Fluminense reminds us of all stigmas, really, the worst ones.
It's in the metropolitan area, away from the town of Rio de Janeiro,
in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
In order to think today about stories, as I study Communication,
I did a search on "news Baixada Fluminense", this came up,
"'She's a monster', says husband of alleged pedophile teacher;"
"Alleged militia members are arrested at Baixada Fluminense;"
"Images show mugging at the highway at Baixada Fluminense."
"Teacher is shot in front of school, at Baixada Fluminense."
So, just by looking at these headlines, framed the way they are, we say,
"Gee, I'll never want to visit Baixada Fluminense, never ever."
(Laughter)
There's a chance I'll be involved in killings,
I might go to a school and meet up with a pedophile teacher,
there's a chance I'll be mugged,
and there's militia...
In sum, you look for news and these is what you get.
And to think: communication professionals, all of them, and in fact all of us,
because we're communication,
we're conveying meaning, narrative, all the time,
and we frame news.
We frame the cinema,
we frame publicity,
we frame journalism.
Days ago I was talking to my nephew, and he said,
"Aunt, here in my neighborhood there are many criminals."
He's not ten years old yet.
And I said, "Are you sure, how so?"
"Ah, they wear these brands, dress in a certain way, stuff like that,
wear shorts from such and such brands, sneakers and stuff."
I said, "Where the hell did he learn that?"
Then, I was doing research on communication, articles,
and I ended up watching some programs,
"Film him, a close up on his face!"
(Laughter)
"Take a look, that gangster, and so on..."
And they wore the brands my nephew talked about.
Then you go, "Yeah, but this is tabloid news, tabloid journalism."
And when the BAR newspaper will lay out the news saying "allegedly",
we're also framing.
Because when we think "allegedly" we don't think about the other side.
We don't think it might not be the way it's spelled out. We think, "It is."
So, we also frame, regardless of the communication tool we act upon.
Ah, and there's the dead girl too.
(Laughter)
To make another Baixada Fluminense possible.
Within this perpsective,
in that people thought we didn't know how to sit in a chair,
there's also the idea they're kind of wild, right?
Civilization, civility,
the idea that a person from the favela can't even hold a fork,
can't eat with a knife and fork...
This is the worst narrative there is,
the narrative that you aren't able to go,
that you can't go further, this is your place,
you'll be there forever and that's it.
But then, I started studying cinema at the "Escola Livre de Cinema"
in Nova Iguaçu.
Yes, there's a free cinema school at Baixada Fluminense!
(Cheers)
You see!
(Applause)
Did you know?
And there, what did we do? We produced images.
From what? From our place.
From whom? From us.
We told our histories.
The neighbor's history, the uncle's, the baker's.
These were the narratives we were telling.
And I started discovering my town,
at the time I was in school, in secondary level,
being part of a group of young reporters.
We were 15, 16 years old,
boys, girls,
who got out of the house with mud up to here, rural area, semi rural;
and went downtown Nova Iguaçu to talk about cultural events
going on in town,
about everything that was positive, about actions going on,
that impacted others' lives,
and producing new narratives.
That's how I knew about an old style TV, Maxambomba TV,
so we need to go back in history and say that long before 2000,
in other words, long before we began to think about being among reporters,
long before wanting to study cinema,
there were people conveying meaning through community TV images in town.
There are people like Maracatu Baque da Mata, who occupy public parks,
showing maracatu;
we've got the free cinema school,
which has already celebrated ten years in activity;
the cineclub Buraco do Getúlio, which is a cinema in a bar,
and is now also occupying public parks, bringing other films,
other narratives, other references,
mixing beer, poetry, circus, dance.
And it's all produced by Baixada artists.
So, at one point I said, "Gee, I'm so restless...
restless, restless..."
(Laughter)
Then I started to want to look at Brazil from a Baixada's perspective.
And while I tried to understand myself as a woman,
as a black woman,
being raised by white people,
and hearing people that were close to me say things like,
"Hey Yasmim, you're lucky to have been born in times like this,
because some years ago you'd be fanning me.
Lucky you your color isn't so dark, you're not pitch black;
that means you're weak, you'd do lighter work."
And, when you're a kid, you can't care less.
You don't understand it well, it's not something you learn about,
it's not a topic of discussion,
you think, "Oh, cool, they're teaching me history. Thanks."
(Laughter)
Years later you start thinking about it.
And you realize, "Oh gee, that's slavery, isn't it?
How can a relationship like that happen among people who are close?"
So, this is how we think until today.
Then, to think about Brazil from a Baixada's perspective...
Among friends, we always ask when we go places,
"How many blacks are there?"
In the power spots or elitist spots I frequent,
people always think I'm an artist.
This means common people, blacks particularly, can't be there...
and not be artists.
Dando was saying, "Oh, they always come and say to me,
'Gee, you're a pagodeiro? A singer of some kind, right?'"
(Laughter)
So, we're always framed in this space.
So, we ask, "How many blacks?"
How many blacks are there in Brazil?
In 2014, 47.9 percent of the population
acknowledged themselves as blacks.
In 2015, this number went up to 53 percent, according to IBGE.
You may ask, "Ah Yasmim, more blacks were born,
the population grew or what?"
Yeah, all has gone up, in fact, there are more people now.
But there's another factor that also matters.
This professor says this in an article published in "El País,"
that also talks about the increase in the number of black people,
"The black population that has more access
to real knowledge of African and Afrobrazilian history,
they start to see themselves more positively as blacks."
This means, there's a narrative
that has massacred these people, these images throughout history.
This image was always seen from a negative perspective.
And to get away from this reflection and thinking,
"Hey, you're reflecting too much,"
let's remember three images here,
where we've seen blacks in this role.
First, the mulata, the black woman.
She's remembered in Carnival, big tits, big butt, an object.
In other words, the woman who's there and only shows up during Carnival,
as the "protagonist" of a party, hipersexualized.
We also have this image, a classic image in books,
which is the rebelious black guy, who's beaten up,
who stands naked in front of a crowd so everyone can see, who's massacred, etc.
And the bad guy, in films.
So, in case you're working on a soap opera the bad guy will obviously be a black guy.
You see, "a character who runs in the midst of cars."
A black guy, isn't it?
So, there are places we associate to black people,
because we learned, while making sense of images and meanings,
that these people are going to be in these places.
We need to change that.
GEMAA is a research group at UERJ that made a research about cinema.
They analyzed Brazilian blockbuster films between 2002 and 2012.
Four percent of the script writers were black,
in these ten years of movie production in Brazil.
And there was no black woman as script writers.
We need to remember that 52 percent of our population is black.
Protagonists, actors and actresses: 14 percent of them were black men,
and 4 percent of them were black women.
And directors: 2 percent of them were black men,
and no black woman as movie director.
We need to remember that a large part of Brazilian cinema is funded
by public money.
So this is the money that funds cinema productions, but these people
who make up a large part of the population don't see themselves represented.
These people don't see themselves represented,
they don't write their stories and they don't direct films.
But they are here.
(Laughter)
If I ask you,
"Tell me ten names of Brazilian black women movie directors,"
would anyone be able to tell me?
You see, there are many more than ten.
But then, for this study's purposes...
"No, there aren't...," etc. ...
Let's do something?
This is me.
Too bad she grows...
At age six.
I wrote a short story called "Mc K-Bela,"
for an international literary event of the periphery, the FLUPP,
which takes place every year in a different slum of Rio de Janeiro.
The "Mc K-Bela" tells the story of a black girl
that is discovering herself as a black girl.
Brazil is this kind of country where black positive references are scant,
so, obviously, we're going to neglect where we live, like Baixada,
you're not going to say you're from a place where there's mugging, etc.
This is the standard narrative,
and you're not going to want to be associated with criminals
and negative images.
So you need to find ways to empower and to discover yourself
and say, "I'm black and I'm proud of it."
Mc K-Bela tells the story of this little girl,
who had to straighten her hair and live in pain in her head,
and that is quite likely the story of many black women around the world,
who straighten their hair and wreck their history.
So "Mc K-Bela" is this story
that turned into a monologue, played in the theater and on the internet.
"Let's go out and shoot a video?" "Yeap, let's do it."
We invited people on the internet.
Two hundred girls, from all over Brazil,
registered saying,
"My boyfriend dumped me, I'm depressed, please help me,"
"I took the mega-hair off,"
"My mother sent me out of home,
I want to do something, please help me."
These girls were from all over Brazil, Amazonas, Minas, Rio de Janeiro, etc.
We selected ten of those girls.
In three years,
I shot the film, then lost it,
without any money,
but in the process, I got mature and connected to a lot of people.
In the end, "Kbela" involved about 60 people,
a team led by black women.
So, as we don't know, let's create our own references:
a black woman as producer;
I wrote it and directed it;
black women and trans in the cast;
a black woman directing art work.
Black women in cinema power areas,
producing images from their set of values.
We managed to get 5,000 Brazilian reais on the internet.
For those who know a little about film-making in Brazil,
and know that it's a very expensive endeavor,
know that with 5,000 Brazilian reais we could barely eat and commute,
it was practically nothing.
This is the film's cast.
We had the chance to premiere at Odeon Theater,
one of the most important theaters in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro.
We sold out the two floors of Odeon in four days.
This is one of the days of exhibition,
and we had our season extended to three more exhibitions,
and we sold out again,
with black people, older women,
people coming from Baixada, from São Gonçalo,
crossing Rio to check the images,
to see women, to see black people on screen.
This is the image of the crew who made it happen.
We ended up in an internet forum about innovation in China;
in Brazil the case was spoken of as innovative.
We identified...
One day I was at the premiere of "Kbela" in Salvador,
and a girl approached me and said, "I'd never expected to hear
curly hair being combed at the cinema.
Never thought I was going to hear this sound at the cinema."
Then I thought, "Gee!
this says a lot about representativity,
representation, how much people long to see and hear."
So, how can we add this up? What can we do?
I thought about a platform called Afroflix,
because cinema is for everyone, right?
Let's go for it.
Afroflix is a platform that has films, series,
webseries, documentaries...
Audiovisual content produced or protagonized
or written or directed by black people,
for at least one hour.
Now you won't be embarassed if I ask,
"Tell me ten names of black women moviemakers."
(Laughter)
Now you've got Afroflix.
It's on, it's been on for three days and already there are people saying,
"Wow, cool, I can see myself there."
"Marathon we go? Gee, my dissertation is over!"
(Laughter)
"I can see it here, my film has got new visualizations since you've released it."
Once, somebody said at the opening of registrations,
"So, now you'll come up with separate drinking fountains for blacks and whites?"
Or, this other: "Ah racists the other way around?"
This is a narrative that always comes back as rethoric.
And this history has never belonged to us.
We weren't the ones to establish segregation as a rule.
In truth, we've always gone the other way.
So, in the future, we want to make original series and materials.
But, we like saying, "The future is now."
We'll launch on June 14th an original Afroflix film.
(Video)
Check the trailer.
Mom, I'll dance at the Municipal Theater. She said, "Go ahead, dream about it."
When she saw it, she cried with me.
Narrator: Malcom X?
Chorus: Here.
Narrator: Zumbi of Palmares?
Chorus: Here.
Narrator: Luis Gama?
Chorus: Here.
Narrator: Nego Bento?
Chorus: Here.
Narrator: João Cândido?
Chorus: Here.
Narrator: Slave Anastácia?
Chorus: Here.
Narrator: Martin Luther King?
Chorus: Here.
Narrator: Gualter Rocha, Gambá?
Chorus: Here.
♪ Tears roll down like rain,
they burn more than any temperature.
This pain I think will never be over.
Just good memories that help to console. ♪
Yasmin Thayná: This film will premiere in June,
a film that shows the first time there was
a funk performance in the Municipal Theater.
The first time bermudas were allowed,
first time slippers made it into the Municipal Theater;
that the funk guys, the step people, a current dance bred in the favelas
had a chance to bring their values into this elitist theater,
inside the classics' place,
putting their own values there.
So, the film will premiere now on June 14th in Rio.
(Applause)
Thank you.
To wrap up, one day someone said, "Oh Yasmin, you're not going very far.
You won't make it to the university, surely not."
Today, I go to university, I've got a scholarship
in one of the best colleges
of communication in the country, which is PUC-Rio.
And here I am, willing to make changes,
working on my projects,
thinking somehow that, in spite of the narrative...
No one transforms anything alone, no country is transformed alone.
We live in a diverse and multiple country,
lots of people habe been thinking and trying to change things for very long.
Narratives go back a long way.
Our steps come from far.
I believe there are things no cheating
or coup or slap in the face can crush.
So, power to those who want to change
and truly rebuild this country.
Thank you.
(Applause)