Inaugural lecture by Professor Stephanie Dennison

To book your place, contact Professor Stephanie Dennison (s.dennison@leeds.ac.uk)

Maria Augusta Ramos is one of Brazil’s most important contemporary documentary filmmakers. Her films have been screened in various international film and documentary festivals and have garnered many prizes. These films include the “trilogy” that dealt with the addled Brazilian justice system Justiça (Justice, 2004), Juizo (Behave, 2007) and Morro dos Prazeres (Hill of Pleasures, 2013), as well as Futuro Junho (Future June, 2015), her original take on the June protests in São Paulo of 2013.

Ramos once more holds national institutions tacitly to account in her new documentary: O Processo (The Trial), on the impeachment process of President Dilma Rousseff. The film portrays the “judicial political” trial first at the Congress and, then, in the Senate focusing on the President’s defence team: her lawyer and a group of senators who struggle to prove the President’s innocence against a majority vote by a Congress riddled with corruption.

The film offers a behind-the-scenes inside look at this historical moment. Ramos was granted unique access to the defence team, to left-wing senators and to President Rousseff herself. Ramos’ technique is wholly observational, without interviews and narration. The camera captures telling physical and conversational interactions in the private and political sphere while offering viewers a glimpse of the outdoor mass demonstrations.

At this event Ramos will generously share exclusive footage of The Trial, currently in post-production.