Cineclubismo and Territory in Brazil's Baixada Fluminense

Location: B.09 (SR) Parkinson Building

This event will welcome members of Mate com Angu, a landmark cineclube in Rio de Janeiro, located in the Baixada Fluminense (Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), to the CWCDC. Through their role as educators, filmmakers and central members of Mate com Angu, Igor Barradas and Heraldo HB are key contributors to the cultural landscape and the rich film culture of the Baixada. Mate com Angu has run since 2002 and recently hosted the fifth edition of its own festival in the region, of which Luisa Pitanga, a member of the film club and a Visual Anthropology researcher, was one of the curators (https://matecomangu.org/site/).

At this event, Barradas, HB and Pitanga will share how Mate com Angu’s history is interwoven with that of the Baixada, how it intervenes in representations of and approaches to its territory, as well as their role in the fight for popular cinematic education, and cultural spaces and equipment in the peripheries of Rio. The exhibition of selected fragments from their cinematic production will serve as seeds for this discussion. Drawing these threads together, this event will explore the political potential of cinema to intervene in how peripheries are represented and produced.

The event will be followed by a workshop on DIY film programming and festival organization for MA students.

Igor Barradas – Director, Screenwriter, Producer and Editor

Igor Barradas is a filmmaker, screenwriter and educator from Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro. He directed his first short film in 2001 and, shortly afterwards, founded the Cineclube Mate Com Angu film club with friends. His short films include Lá no Fim do Mundo..., winner of the Troféu Baixada at Iguacine, and O Voo, selected for the 28th Inffinito Brazilian Film Festival.

Amuleto, co-directed with Heraldo HB, is his first feature-length film and premiered in the Première Brasil section of the 27th Festival do Rio. In 2026, his short film Alvorada premiered.

Heraldo HB – Director, Screenwriter and Researcher

Heraldo HB is a filmmaker and screenwriter from the Baixada Fluminense region, founder of Cineclube Mate Com Angu and audiovisual coordinator at ELAdaBF- Escola Livre de Artes da Baixada Fluminense (Baixada Fluminense Free School of Arts).

He wrote and directed the short films Império do Gramacho (2016), Entre Aspas (2018), Todo Dia Você Vai Ter Que Olhar Pra Isso (2020) and Caminhos Encruzados (2020). Amuleto, co-directed with Igor Barradas, is his first feature-length film and premiered in the Première Brasil section of the 27th Festival do Rio.

Luisa Godoy Pitanga – Screenwriter and Researcher

Luisa Godoy Pitanga is an anthropologist, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker, and a member of Cineclube Mate Com Angu. A PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at UFRGS, her research focuses on collaborative practices in audiovisual production and ethnographic methodologies.

For more than 15 years, she has worked in community-based audiovisual education, leading workshops and labs in schools, Quilombos, Indigenous villages and urban communities. She has curated three editions of the Festival Mate Com Angu as well as the Mostra Cinema Brasileiro em Busca de Estrada.

She has worked as a screenwriter and researcher on films including Som dos Sinos, Cine-Rabeca, No Tempo de Outrora- Histórias de Quilombos and Amuleto.