A poetic eye on Brazilian social inequality

• Grant number: 12/00466-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: May 01, 2012
• End date: April 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications
• Principal Investigator: Esther Império Hamburger
• Grantee: Esther Império Hamburger
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

From a wide map on filmic dialogues - or "multilogues" - about expressions of violence and poverty in the history of brazilian cinema and media, on which I've been working for the last few years, I propose a study on the movie Fábula, by Arne Sucksdorff. Fábula is a quite unseen and not studied film, which, however, can be understood as a poetic contribution to the study about the ways in which Rio de Janeiro social inequality is inscribed in film beyond stereotypes. The main idea is to conclude the work involving the "appropriation of the mechanisms of constructing visuality" with a detailed study of a film that confronts politics and aesthetics. The choice of a film by a foreigner who insisted in showing Rio de Janeiro from less known angles, amplifies the scope of the study to include transnational interplay of alterities and their filmic expression. This study aims to contribute to the search of poetic expressions that will help to disarticulate stereotypes that reinforce discriminations of gender, color and class. The study also aims to study the work of a well known Swedish filmmaker who role in the history of Brazilian film is not well studied. In so doing the study will also bring up little known history about the workings of Brazil in the history of a Sweden filmmaker. (AU)