The Impossible Embrace: Ilha, Travessia, and Black Brazilian Cinema Now

In the twentieth century, the Black Brazilian filmmakers who managed to accumulate a substantial body of work were few and far between, with a striking number of Black directors succeeding in making only one or a handful of films. Juliano Gomes examines how this landscape has changed in recent years, prompted by a new generation of film school graduates and reflected in landmark events such as the “Soul in the Eye” program at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2018, in which at least a quarter of the program’s films were made by students. His article focuses on two films representative of these changes: Ilha (2018), whose codirectors Ary Rosa and Glenda Nicácio met in the cinema course at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia, and Travessia (2017), an award-winning student film by Safira Moreira.