Which country is this?

A camera for revealing the Brazil hidden by the dictatorship

Jorge Bodanzky’s cinema has always revealed and interrogated a Brazil hidden behind its official images. The liberating condition of his films redefines, in equal measure, forms of producing, directing, and editing, confronting the limits of cinema through the presentation and representation of lives that appear in it, subverting the conventions and languages of genres such as documentary or fiction. All of his films testify to an understanding that while a life can be a film, a film can never be a life. Freedom to film is an inviolable condition in defense of the right to live, and for this reason Bodanzky’s camera registers, exposes, surprises and invites critical reflection, reconfiguring all of the certainties that may exist about cinema and life which viewers bring with them when they come into contact with one of his films.

Bodanzky’s films embody the filmmaker’s form of action in time and on the territory he chooses to film. His camera is not neutral, it creates situations in relation to the contexts it registers, invents, edits and presents. His cinema is not an imitation of life, nor does it intend to present life as it is in an ultimately illusory objectivity. Bodanzky’s camera is active and, as such, each film affirms its own independent truth, and as such is just as subjective as it is determined by its choices, free from the ideological draw of the mission known conventionally as cinéma verité, yet of which it also reveals itself to be entirely conscious.

The Brazil imposed by the military dictatorship is confronted, exposed, denounced and fought with courage by Jorge Bodanzky’s cinema. What Country Is This? is an exhibition that brings together fragments of films, photographs and documents which express an impressive chapter of resistance and subversion of the norms imposed by the dictatorship and its modes of representing the country. Presenting this exhibition in 2024, 60 years after the 1964 military coup, allows for a reconsideration of this history based on the intersection of memories, images and documents resulting from a body of cinematic work which is highly relevant to the understanding of this historical period. Instituto Moreira Salles, whose archives preserve valuable funds for a reinterpretation of Brazilian history, also marks the passage of these 60 years with this exhibition. This is also the first time the collection of photographs, documents and films by Jorge Bodanzky, stored and preserved by the IMS, has been shared.

We declare our immense gratitude to Jorge Bodanzky for embracing this project so warmly, and for his cooperative and enthusiastic collaboration. We also express considerable appreciation to Thyago Nogueira as curator of the exhibition, Horrana de Kássia Santoz, as curatorial assistant, Ângelo Manjabosco and Mariana Baumgaertner, for the research, in addition to all of the people and teams at IMS who have made this project possible. Throughout its duration the exhibition will be accompanied by a broad ranging retrospective of Jorge Bodanzky’s cinematographic work. Likewise, we also extend acknowledgements to the IMS Cinema programming team, and to the Cinemateca Brasileira, for all the support they have provided.

Instituto Moreira Salles

The fight goes on

This exhibition brings together for the first time the work of photographer, reporter and filmmaker Jorge Bodanzky (São Paulo, 1942) produced during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). While Brazil had fallen under the shadow of authoritarianism, a young student set out from the newly opened University of Brasília to document the social conflict and cultural diversity of the country with his camera. Evading repression and censorship, Bodanzky established himself as one of the sharpest and most critical filmmakers of his generation.

How could one narrate in images the rights violations and environmental destruction that the developmental jingoism of the military government sought to keep invisible? How was it possible to capture in living color the community-based alliance of social movements and the greatness of popular culture that cradled the resistance? Films such as Iracema: uma transa amazônica (1974), censored until 1981, Gitirana (1975) and Jari (1979) invented a new approach to making cinema, with concise scripts, improvised acting, portable equipment and direct audio recording. Fiction and roleplay were often used to expose real contradictions in society. A streamlined production was an essential strategy in constructing a counterimage that opposed official discourse.

While urban struggles were well documented, Bodanzky and partners such as Wolf Gauer, Hermano Penna, Orlando Senna and Helena Salem scoured the country seeking to amplify voices and images that until then had remained out of sight. Traveling to Amazônia, the Northeast and the South of Brazil, his work focused on social injustice and the paradoxes of the authoritarian economic model, while also pointing to the role of ecology and education in the transformation of Brazil.

Bodanzky was making cinema even when he took photographs through a car window, in a plane or helicopter, framing the world in movement. Throughout his 21 year career, he has worked as a photographer for magazines and newspapers, directed photography for classics of independent cinema, recorded reports across Latin America and experimented with super-8 films.

In the center of the room, four projections present scenes from his films organized along thematic lines, such as labor exploitation, varied forms of religiosity, struggles of resistance and the distinct voices of progress. On the walls, photographs and super-8 projections make up the filmmaker’s field notebook. Television monitors display interviews and films made for German channels, while the recessed room focuses on his collaborations as director of photography.

Much of this production is still poorly known, be it due to censorship, lack of funding, or the limited exhibition circuit for activist cinema. Viewed together these works reveal the crucial role images play in the fight for social justice and in understanding a country raised on violent and authoritarian foundations. Revisiting them provides a chance to witness history being written as it happened, while also recognising that many of these conflicts and paradoxes remain alive in Brazil today.

Thyago Nogueira, curator and coordinator of the Contemporary Photography area at IMS.

Some of the audiovisual projections contain scenes of nudity and violence.
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Watch the film show at the IMS Paulista cinema.

Labor exploitation

Iracema: uma transa amazônica (1974), Jorge Bodanzky’s best known film, combines fiction and documentary to narrate a story of love and heartbreak between a young indigenous woman forced into prostitution, and a trucker from the South of the country who sees in the construction of the Transamazonian Highway an easy shot at making dirty money. The prostitution of minors, slavery of rural workers and violence against indigenous peoples are among the themes raised in the film through the original interaction of professional actors, amateurs and passersby – an approach which still provokes discomfort and commotion today. To escape the attention of army officers, the film crew would park their van, improvise a scene and take off. There were no second takes. The film was an affront to the official image of Brazil and remained censored until 1981, despite international success.

The impact of the grandiose projects undertaken by the military government and the private sector were also brought to light in the fictional feature film Gitirana (1975, censored) and the documentary Jari (1979). Gitirana narrates the misadventures of a man-woman worker in search of an enchanted world against the backdrop of the construction of an enormous dam at Sobradinho (Bahia), which led to the expulsion of thousands of residents from the region. Jari exposed the environmental destruction and degrading working conditions in the factories of American businessman Daniel Ludwig, located in the Amazon.

In Iracema (1974), Gitirana (1975) and Os Mucker (1978), Bodanzky made use of allegory and roleplay to approach reality indirectly and evade censors. His films were only possible with German funding as they were not of interest to the Brazilian government. Jari (1979), Terceiro milênio (Third Millennium, 1980) and Igreja dos oprimidos (Church of the Oppressed, 1985), were made as the country edged towards redemocratization, and poked at the wound without mincing words. The way that real and fictional characters celebrate violence and ignorance echoes sad episodes from recent times in Brazil.

Struggle and resistance

“Stone doesn’t block the path, fire doesn’t burn the moonlight”, sing a pair of rural workers in Igreja dos oprimidos (1985), made in the year of redemocratization. The film speaks of rural violence and the action of the Progressive Catholic Church in the fight for land reform in Conceição do Araguaia (Pará). In Bodanzky’s cinema, popular music takes the form of a chorus that comments on social and moral issues. While the dictatorship crumbled in the cities, the interior of the country continued to fight for land and rights through alliances and community associations.

Bodanzky focused on other forms of social resistance during the dictatorship. In the fiction feature Os Mucker (1978), based on a true historical episode, a German community led by messianic couple Jacobina and José Maurer resist the attacks from local society, in a gaucho reenactment of the War of Canudos. The feature film Gitirana (1975), adopted the form of a cordel story, translating the meaning of cangaço into the northeastern and female resistance during the construction of the Sobradinho dam (Bahia) under the government of General Emílio Médici.

The fight against machismo and puritanism is embodied by women like Jacobina in Os Mucker (accused of “sleeping with anyone”); Marieta Puribão in Gitirana (who lies with the Devil to absolve sin); and in the razor that seals Iracema's alliance with Tereza, in Iracema.

Rural workers, the labor movement and feminists fight for justice and emancipation, even when new social and moral values present an affront to a society which responds with the sword of repression. The indiscriminate violence of state and private power is a strategy of domination which promotes conflict even among oppressed groups.

In his own way, Bodanzky provided images for a collective struggle, helping to put the brakes on the project of extermination that developmental jingoism sought to keep hidden. The repressive military system is replaced by the violence of private militias, determined to prevent rural land reform and the distribution of wealth from advancing in the country, reminding us of Dom Alano Pena in Igreja dos oprimidos (1985). The story goes on today.

Religion and spirituality

Religion often embraces and redeems, offering support and comfort from the horrors of repression. In the medium-length feature Caminhos de Valderez (1971), Bodanzky’s debut as director, a middle class woman is tormented by demons and by the dictatorship while seeking refuge in tarot and ceremonies of the religious movement Vale do Amanhecer [Valley of the Dawn], founded by the medium Tia Neiva in Brasília. In Gitirana (1975), a boy transforms into a woman following his grandmother's death, with his godfather's blessing. As Ciça, Maria Bonita or Marieta Puribão, he/she sets out in search of the lost kingdom of Miramar, to escape the worker's destiny. “Free us from sin, pestilence, hunger, drought, flood and money”, she says, embodying a blessed revolutionary.

In the shade of a tree, Father Ricardo Rezende celebrates the Igreja dos oprimidos (1985), and interprets the Bible as a guerrilla manual. Rezende calls for peace in Nicaragua, “a country that lives under the threat of invasion from the United States”, and in South Africa, “where black people have been trampled on by a white minority”. A rural worker pays homage to “our Indians, the true owners of this land, who fell under the yoke of oppressors and capitalists”. Rather than just narrating their stories, the microphone amplifies the voices of the workers accused of subversion and terrorism. The film records the historical moment in which the Catholic Church distanced itself from its initial support for the dictatorship and joined the ranks of resistance, thanks to Liberation Theology.

In Terceiro milênio (1980), however, the rare images of brother José da Cruz reveal the evangelization of the Ticuna people through popular Catholicism that attempted to erase traditional spirituality and turn indigenous peoples into a workforce. In Iracema (1974), the popular devotion to the Christian religious celebration Círio de Nazaré, in Belém, also serves as a rite of passage for the young indigenous character into the decay of capitalist society. Spirituality and religion form inseparable bases for community alliances, which is why they remain crucial in navigating contemporary Brazil.

What is progress?

The dictatorship sold an economic miracle and delivered environmental destruction, the violation of rights and corruption. During the regime’s most violent years Bodanzky used fiction, histrionic acting and historical analogies to deal with inflamed conflicts. “Nature ain’t a mother at all. Nature is my truck, kid, nature is the road”, brags Tião Brasil Grande in Iracema (1974). His prejudiced arrogance still echoes throughout the country.

Every kilometer of the Transamazonian promoted by the government opened up a fresh wound of violence and destruction. Bodanzky documented a country in conflict and sent overseas some of the first color images of the Amazon in flames.

In 1978, at the invitation of a Congressional Investigative Commission (CPI), he visited the Jari Project, a business run by American Daniel Ludwig, which deforested swathes of the Amazon rainforest to produce cellulose, rice and kaolin. The documentary Jari (1979) was innovative in juxtaposing the official discourse of the factory administration with the voices of the workers, exposing the unhealthy relationship between private investment and the government of general Ernesto Geisel.

In Bodanzky’s cinema the camera films and directs the action while the sound weaves into the storyline, providing point and counterpoint. “The Indian is a true ecologist. A man who feels the complexity, harmony and integration of the forest, deeply”, declares environmentalist José Antonio Lutzenberger. Bodanzky’s cinema provided a counter narrative to the official discourse, which even co-opted newspapers and magazines.

The invitation to film the CPI trip was made by Amazonian senator Evandro Carreira, who went on to feature in his own documentary. Terceiro milênio (1980) followed Carreira’s journey along the Solimões River as he campaigned for state government. “What is progress?” he provokes. Prejudiced and at the same time visionary, Carreira synthesizes paradoxes of the time and anticipates current dilemmas: “Either you will invent me, or you will investigate me, or decipher me, man of the third millennium, or I will devour you with devastation, with desert, and the hell that will be the future Amazônia”, he concludes.