Fordlandia Malaise (2019) + Abrir Monte (2021)

Fordlandia Malaise, 2019 — Susana Sousa Dias, Brazil/Portugal (41’)

Fordlandia Malaise explores the decadence of the megalomaniac enterprise that the Ford Company set up in Brazil in 1928, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, along the Tapajós River. This agro-industrial project aimed to massively plant rubber trees to produce rubber, essential for the US car industry. A substantial part of the forest was devastated for the plantation and construction of a town, where managers and a large number of contractors would settle.

However, the enterprise soon revealed its colonial logic, with the division of the city, which separated the Americans from the indigenous labourers. The imposition of an American way of life and culture, including food, caused discontent and the resignation of many labourers. The hard work, in difficult conditions, often led to the death of the workers, prompting the hiring of women and children to replenish the labour force. The project fell through due to a lack of preparation and study of the site, which favoured the spread of a a plague that would completely destroy the rubber trees. The growing revolt expressed by the locals would also speed up the withdrawal of the Americans.

Susana Sousa Dias explores the memory of this past, using archive footage and testimonies from the town’s current inhabitants, along with contemporary film footage, blending them through a rhythmic visual and sound montage.

Abrir Monte, 2021 — Maria Rojas Arías, Colombia (26’)

In 1929, a group of workers called Los Bolcheviques del Líbano Tolima organise a revolution to fight against a conservative and repressive government. The story is told by the women, together with the village elder, whose memories recount a past-present. The 16mm black and white footage, along with the testimonies and the reconstitution of past events, through the superimposition of images moved at different rhythms with the use of voice-over, has a spectral effect, confusing past time with the present, making it clear that the struggle is not over.

* Session with the producer Ansgar Schaefer

Lucky Star — Cineclube de Braga
Lúcio Craveiro da Silva Library
R. de São Paulo 1, 4700-042 Braga

Tickets:

General public: €3
Cineclube members: Free entry
Students and BLCS users: €1

More information at facebook.com/cinebraga