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The African presence in Brazilian music manifests itself in different ways. If in 1966, Baden Powell “Rio-fied” candomblé with the Afro-sambas he composed with Vinícius de Moraes, half a century later we experienced an unprecedented moment with the arrival of musicians from different African countries in the metropolis of São Paulo. In the film Afro-Sampas we see what can happen when musicians from both sides of the Atlantic are brought into contact in the city where they live. Yannick Delass (Democratic Republic of Congo), Edoh Fiho (Togo), Lenna Bahule (Mozambique), and the Brazilians Ari Colares, Chico Saraiva and Meno del Picchia accept our invitation to a first meeting in which they share sounds, memories and creativity.

Inhabiting the eyes, walking along images and following lines drawn with a camera are some of the experiences proposed in this film. It is based on the story and compositions made by photographer Evelyn Torrecilla, based on her experiences in Arte Org therapy, responsible for a transformation in her ways of seeing and photographing. The film invites the viewer to move their senses along photos taken by Evelyn. The soundtrack, composed by the musician and Arteorgian therapist Javiera Abufhele, also reflects the learning of this therapy. The result is a synaesthetic experience that suggests a shuffle between cinema, photography, drawing and music.
The production is the result of Post-Doctoral research, entitled "Ways of perceiving and ways of taking care of oneself: an audiovisual ethnography of Art Org therapy", carried out by Luis Felipe Kojima Hirano at PPGAS-USP and at the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology , under the supervision of Sylvia Caiuby Novaes, between 2019 and 2020. The research sought to systematize eight years of fieldwork in Arte Org therapy, created by Jovino Camargo Jr., which follows the principles of body and perceptive psychology by Wilhelm Reich. From a series of exercises that work the body and perception, Arte Org seeks to deal with contemporary human functioning, enhancing ways of seeing and feeling the world. In this research, I mapped the crossings of bodily and perceptive experience in the artistic production of photographers, musicians, dancers, actors and actresses from Arteorgu. The short film “Habitar os olhos” is the first episode of a series in preparation, which aims to imagetically explore the movements of these artists. The Covid-19 pandemic posed challenges to the film's initial conception. The impossibility of continuing the filming made room for an intense work of editing with photographs by Evelyn Torrecilla. If it was not possible to film the photographer's wanderings through different landscapes due to the quarantine, it was at least possible to walk along her photographs, thus seeking to get out of the confinement imposed by the pandemic. The result is a mix of documentary and photofilm – an invitation to listen to Evelyn's experience at Arte Org and to walk with one's eyes through her photographs.

A family decides to open a classical music school in their own house. The young six Cruz brothers start to teach various musical instruments to the children in their neighborhood. Little by little the house becomes a musical meeting place in one of Fortaleza’s most dangerous neighborhoods. But in order to live their dream of becoming professional musicians the family need to look for new horizons. How far will music take them?

A young leader and audiovisual director, Patrícia Ferreira has been recognized for the documentaries she has been making with her people, the Guarani Mbya. She was called to debate her work at one of the world's largest ethnographic film festivals, the Margaret Mead Film Festival, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In that place, Patricia comes across some exhibitions, debates and attitudes that make her think about the "juruá" people’s world, contrasting it with the Guarani’s modes of existence.

Ãjãí is a fun game where only the players' heads can touch the ball. This practice, shared by a few indigenous people in the world, is present among the Myky and Manoki populations of Mato Grosso state, Brazil, who speak a language of an isolated linguistic family. Youngsters of the Myky people decide to film and edit their game for the first time, to publicize it outside the villages. But to organize this great party, its chiefs will find some challenges ahead.

Mapana is the name of an association of women from the Ticuna people. Located in Belém do Solimões (8 thousand people), it is the largest community of this indigenous group, the largest one in Brazil. This association provides products from its crops for school meals in all schools in Tabatinga (AM). With its results, size and volume of production, it is a unique experience that serves as an example for other indigenous and community associations.

This documentary, co-directed by indigenous researcher Nyg Kuitá Kaingang and anthropologist Paola Gibram, presents reflections and performances by members of the kaingang youth collective Nẽn Ga, from the Apucaraninha Indigenous Land, located in the north of the state of Paraná, in the southern region of Brazil . The kaingang voices – kanhgág vĩ – are presented in this documentary through the speeches of some of the members and people linked to the collective, as well as through songs – considered one of the main ways in which they present their ancestors [javé] and bring to his jagreh [guiding spirits] close to him. The film shows the strong connection between the Nẽn Ga movement and the indigenous school, exploring the ways in which contemporary kaingang reflect on the cultural and existential usurpations resulting from the many years of contact with the fóg [white, non-indigenous] people and the urgent need to resume the kanhgág practices and knowledge that were prohibited or violated – which they consider to have been “sleeping” and are now being “awakened”. The film shows scenes from the Festa do Pãri, one of the main revivals carried out by the collective. During the five days of the festival, the Kaingang camp on the banks of the Apucaraninha River, during which they prepare the pãri, an ancestral Kaingang fishing trap, made of braided bamboo. The documentary also shows Nẽn Ga's participation in indigenous political mobilization events, one of the main aspects of this collective's activities and formation.

Only six elders of the Manoki population in the Brazilian Amazon still speak their indigenous language, an imminent risk of losing the means by which they communicate with their spirits. Although this is a difficult topic, young people decide to tell in images and words their version of this long history of relations with non-indigenous people, talking about their pains, challenges, and desires. Despite all the difficulties of the current context, struggle and hope echo in various dimensions of the short film, indicating that “the Manoki language will survive!”

The Popxop, Macacos-Yãmĩyxop (Po'op-Yãmĩyxop), are singing allies of the Tikmũ´ũn / Maxakali people, now residents of the Mucuri Valley, in Minas Gerais. Periodically, they come to the villages to spend a long period, which can last for a few months, to manage the homesickness of their mothers and fathers, male and female shamans Tikmũ'ũn / Maxakali. They sing the stories, secrets, paths and views of the Atlantic Forest, imitating and narrating songs from other groups of Yãmĩyxop, singing-enchanted beings who also accompany and protect the Tikmũ´ũn / Maxakali. Bringing knowledge and experiences of joy, they ensure the health of the community and celebrate shamanic encounters that cross territory and time.

Only six elders of the Manoki population in the Brazilian Amazon still speak their indigenous language, an imminent risk of losing this important dimension of their ways of existence. Decided to reclaim their language with the elders, the younger ones decide to narrate their challenges and desires in images and words. Based on the analogy with the fragility of cotton that becomes a strong wire to support the weight in the hammock, Marta Tipuici speaks about the resistance of her people, her relationship with her grandmother and her hope to speak their indigenous language again.

Roland Barthes announced a provocative "death of the author" while Michel Foucault wondered "what is an author?". In addition to these recognized authors, how is it possible to think about the hierarchies and authorship involved in ethnographic films? Are there author layers? An anthropologist, a musician and a cultural artivist, who made the film "Art and the street"" together, reflect on these questions.

Woya hayi mawe: where are you going to? These lyrics echo Mozambican musician Lenna Bahule’s explorations both in her birthplace - Maputo - and in her adopted home of São Paulo. From the stage to the urban outskirts, we see how Lenna deals with the difficulties of being a black female musician in both Brazil and Mozambique. The artistic world of São Paulo demands her Africanity, her African references, her roots. Yet in Mozambique Lenna is now known for her success in Brazil: she brings some of Brazil’s cultural power to the stage in Maputo. Returning to Mozambique, she rediscovers her home country with new eyes. Lenna meets and works with an inspirational new generation of Maputo-based musicians, who she involves in the production of a show in Maputo’s Centro Cultural Franco-Moçambicano. From this major cultural institution, to her grandmother’s farm and a social project in Maputo’s outskirts, we see Lenna and the Maputo artivists investigating Mozambique’s traditional and popular musics and discovering new musical and activist routes. Navigating between activism and the stage, between an imagined ‘Africa’ that Brazil demands of her, and a Brazilian cosmopolitanism São Paulo has given her, Lenna discovers - in a traditional Chopi song that travels - that her musical roots were even more powerful than she imagined.

Chaos and tranquility. Material and spiritual. Felinto transcends these universes by proposing, through music, introspection through the beauty of sound frequencies.
In this film, directed by Renato Albuquerque de Oliveira as a result of his scientific initiation research, supervised by Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji and produced through the extension course “Documentário de Criação”, taught by Carolina Caffe, we see Felinto's ideas about how the agency of music can influence the psychic and spiritual states of the human being, as a way of opposing the chaotic rhythm of São Paulo. Music, as this performer suggests, would be something like a river that flows in the opposite direction to the river that is the ethos of the city where he lives, functioning as a therapeutic tool against the anxiety generated by the way of life that unfolds there.

Ondino Casimiro, an indigenous Ticuna man, is a very unique person among his people. One of the great connoisseurs of the so-called Festa da Moça Nova, the ritual of female initiation. His fame as a singer took him far, performing in Manaus, São Paulo and even a tour in Italy. He knows like no one the basket weaving arts and is responsible for officiating the Catholic Mass on Sundays in the small chapel of the community. A dedicated teacher of the children of the community, every morning it is possible to hear him teaching in both languages, Ticuna and Portuguese. There is no doubt that Ondino is a erudite in his culture and a skilled translator of the white world for the Ticuna and vice versa.

The Afro-Sampas project promotes the meeting between African musicians living in São Paulo and Brazilian musicians. In this episode, Chico Saraiva welcomes Edoh Fiho and Sassou Espoir Ametoglo, from Togo, Yannick Delass and Shambuyi Wetu, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, into his apartment in São Paulo. From this first meeting, the song "Anitché Brasil África" ​​was born.

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