Brazil / 2006 / 15mins / Documentary, Dance film / Portuguese

Capoeira looks like a martial art, but it is a unique mix of acrobatics, song and music. This art form originated in Brazil during the days of slavery, when slaves used it to express their emotions. The sport is still very popular in Brazil, and 10-year-old Jaõ and his mother and father all practice it. They stand in a circle out in the street and take turns dancing in the middle.

Paola Barreto

Paola Barreto is an audiovisual artist and researcher trained as a filmmaker. She has a BA in Film Studies, a MA in Aesthetics and Technology and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Poetics at the School of Visual Arts at Rio de Janeiro Federal University. Between 2014 and 2015 she was a visiting scholar at the Flusser Archiv at the Berlin University of the Arts. Her theoretical and practical production is based on analog and digital video circuits, media archeology and hybrid systems, unfolding in installations, interventions and science fiction. As a filmmaker she has received awards in Oberhausen and Buenos Aires and has exhibited her films at the Havana, It’s All True and São Paulo festivals. Her video interventions and installations have been exhibited at Festivals such as Live Performers Meeting, Rom; Vorspiel/ Transmediale, Berlin and Eletronika BH, Belo Horizonte. She lives and works in Salvador as a Professor at UFBA, and has been designing video circuits for film, theatre, performance and exhibitions since 2002. Learn More