Saudade: News from and for the Brazilian community/Notícias de e para a comunidade brasileira

Brazilian Film at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival

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This weekend will bring one of my all-time favorite events, the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival, and this year it will feel even more special as one of the films will be Brazilian and tackle a topic that it is gaining worldwide traction: toxic masculinity. I also love the idea that it is being shown in March — Women’s History Month.

I first heard of the movie through Corinne Kurtz’s Women’s Studies class last semester when some Brazilian students wanted to use the film “Chega de Fiu Fiu” (Enough with Catcalling) for their final presentation, and couldn’t find a way to watch the film. Corinne and I worked together along with Brian Ditchfield and Hilary Dreyer, and they made it possible to bring the film to the festival. The movie will be shown on Sunday, March 23, at 12 pm at the Chilmark School, and it will be followed by a panel discussion with some of our Brazilian students. We couldn’t be more excited.

A bit about the movie: In July 2013, a Brazilian collective called Think Olga launched an online campaign for the film with the aim of combating sexual harassment against women in public spaces as data received by ActionAid research showed that 86 percent of Brazilian women suffered sexual violence or harassment in public spaces. In a documentary format, “Chega de Fiu Fiu” follows the story of three women: Rosa Luz, rapper and visual artist living in Gama, Brasília; Raquel Carvalho, a nursing student living in Salvador, Bahia; and Teresa Chaves, a history teacher from São Paulo. Each of them has similar reports of harassment in public spaces, from different perspectives since each of them lives a reality.

The film portrays the diversity of gender, race, and class identity in cities with different dynamics: São Paulo, which is a megalopolis, Brasília (the capital), which is a modernist capital and designed solely for cars, and Salvador, a coastal city with the largest Afro-descendent population in the country. In addition to accompanying the three characters, the documentary in parallel uses statements from the Map Chega de Fiu Fiu, which publishes an online map on which any girl or woman can fix a pin on the street where she has been harassed, along with an account of what happened. The film also presents statements from experts such as philosopher Djamila Ribeiro and Brazil’s former secretary of politics for women, Nilceia Freire, who talks about the subject. The film deals with the various forms of violence that women suffer in Brazilian public spaces. Harassment is one of them, and the culture of rape, which has several nuances, from verbal harassment to femicide and rape.

Another point of “Chega de Fiu Fiu” is that it shows scenes from a debate group formed by men as a way to debate masculinity and show that men need to commit to the fight that women have been fighting for generations, while asking the audience if it is solely women who have the obligation and the duty to teach how women should be treated. This is also a discussion for the males of the world, whether our fathers, brothers, friends, or husbands. Here is a trailer for the film: bit.ly/2YhmOPg.