The Rainbow House Woman - Trailer from Cisco Lab on Vimeo.
This Saturday (24), at 19 pm, at the CPFL Institute, in Campinas, the national pre-release of the short film “A Mulher da Casa do Arco-Íris”, directed by Gilberto Alexandre Sobrinho and co-directed by Grácia Navarro, both professors at the Unicamp Arts Institute. The exhibition is part of the programming of the 14th February festival – Campinas International Theater Festival, which ends this Sunday (25).
Last call documentary “black trilogy” by Sobrinho, “A Mulher da Casa do Arco-Íris” has already premiered abroad. It was in November last year, when the short film participated in the competitive exhibition at the Leeds International Film Festival. On the occasion, the film was shown at the century-old Hyde Park Picture House, a 1914 cinema considered to be the oldest in England still in operation.
As well as “Diário de Exus”, from 2014, and “A Dança da Amizade. Histórias de Urucungos, Puítas e Quijengues”, from 2016, “A Mulher da Casa do Arco-Íris”, highlights aspects of the past and present of black people in the Campinas region that go beyond those commonly related to the issue of slavery.
The guiding thread of this third documentary, produced by the Cisco Laboratory with resources from the Short Film Encouragement Award from the Secretariat of Culture of the State of São Paulo, is the biography of Mãe Dango, a spiritual and community leader who runs a Candomblé Angola terreiro – called Casa do Arco-Íris – in the city of Hortolândia. Mãe Dango is also one of the creators of the annual washing of the steps of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Campinas, a ceremony that she has organized and coordinated for over 30 years in partnership with Mãe Corajacy.
Sobrinho says that he had no intention of explaining what Candomblé is, although he himself believes that there is still, even in Brazil, a lot of ignorance and prejudice regarding the religion. “I wanted to tell this story [of Mãe Dango] in a very poetic way,” he says. According to the director, the question session that followed the screening of the documentary in Leeds showed that the festival audience understood the film's purpose. “The film explained itself and generated a debate on several issues.”
In Campinas, the pre-launch of “A Mulher da Casa do Arco-Íris” will also be followed by a conversation – this time, with the participation of the director and the central character of the documentary. Earlier, two other short films from the Cisco Laboratory will be shown in celebration of the production company's 15th anniversary, formed by Unicamp students and alumni: "Saudade, Vídeo-Cartas para Cuba", by Coraci Ruiz and Julio Matos, released in 2005; and "Acontecências", by Hidalgo Romero and Alice Vilella, released in 2009.
In addition to the first two documentaries in the “black trilogy”, Sobrinho directed the short film “A Little Bit of Everything, Maybe”, released in 2017 and also shown, non-competitively, at the last Leeds Festival. (look matter)
