Pelourinho: They Don’t Really Care About Us

9:00 / Brazil, Germany / 2019 / Super 8 / Sound

Synopsis: Freely inspired by a 1927 letter from American sociologist and Pan-Africanist W.E.B. Du Bois to the American embassy in Brazil, this colorful film takes us back to a time when it was impossible for African Americans to travel to Brazil and reminds us of the inequality still faced by the Black inhabitants of that country.

Director: Akosua Adoma Owusu

Artist bio: Akosua Adoma Owusu is a Ghanaian-American filmmaker, producer, and educator. Aiming to create a third cinematic space or consciousness, Owusu’s work explores the colliding identities of black immigrants in America through multiple forms, ranging from cinematic essays to experimental narratives to reconstructed Black popular media. Named by IndieWire as one of the 6 pre-eminent “Avant-Garde Female Filmmakers Who Redefined Cinema”, she has screened extensively at festivals and museums worldwide including the New York Film Festival, Berlinale, Locarno, MoMA and London (BFI). Her film Kwaku Ananse won the 2013 Africa Movie Academy Award and has been selected for the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Cecilia Alemani. Her work can be streamed on PBS, The Criterion Channel and MUBI. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University and at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York