Cajá dos Negros

a film on the demand

Abstract

This article is a revisit to the exercise and production of the short film Cajá dos Negros, a film that condenses narratives about the material and immaterial territory of the quilombola community of Cajá dos Negros. It is a film that touches on sensitive issues that emerge from the memories of the narrators present in the production, involving time and feelings, through threads that connect people, which are territory, memory and family. The aim of this article is to raise questions about the production of films about quilombolas, and through the empirical example of our experience, we return to the making of the short film Cajá dos Negros in its context and production. Seeking to align theoretical reflections from the fields of anthropology and cinema, we revisited some current and past works to think about editing and the concept of griotagem. To this end, we cite the following productions: Touki Bouki: The Voyage of the Hyena, God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun, Acossado and MWANY. Thinking about the idea of griot evoked by Mambety in his film Touki Bouki and placing it in the present day, we mean that black filmmakers are the new griots, and using concepts such as mindscapes and oralituras, the new griots create images and sounds to narrate their stories and pass on ancestral teachings.

[Received on: Aug 27, 2023 – Accepted on: Nov 12, 2023]