Brazil / 1999 / 22mins / Documentary / Portuguese

In 1939, the North American anthropologist Ruth Landes came to Bahia to do research on the black race and was surprised by the strength and the sovereignty of the women of Candomble, who within the religion and the religious community exercised their matriarchal power.

Lázaro Faria

Lázaro Faria started in 1990 at Bahia X Movies, where he produced commercials for all Brazil, political and institutional marketing programs for television. In the following years, he produced and directed the 16 mm documentary Os Orixás da Bahia, and travelled to India to produce and direct the documentary video Satytananda, made a documentary film about the deity Yemanjá, embarked on an expedition through the Amazon and the Western boundaries and made the film Amazônias. His first feature film City of Women (A Cidade das Mulheres) received awards from BNDS and won the Golden Armadillo for best feature film at the XXXII Journey Film of Bahia. In the same year he produced, photographed and directed Mandinga em Manhattan, a documentary about capoeira. His films were selected at numerous festivals in Brazil and abroad, as well as at the universities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Notredame. Faria also created the system GeoVid, a digital tool. In addition, he is president of Casa de Cinema da Bahia, where he produced documentaries and fiction films such as TV documentary Mandinga en Colombia and Connecting South, with the participation of Gilberto Gil. Learn More