Film Exiled Dreams brings stories of African immigrants in SP

From Africa to Brazil, immigrant women and men came with dreams and expectations, but were faced with disillusionment and xenophobia. These are stories that can be seen in the short film by Angolan Paulo Chavonga, which tells the story of African immigrant vendors on the streets of São Paulo. Paulo says that the idea came up when he arrived in Brazil and saw many immigrants similar to him, but at the same time very different. “But Brazil put us in the same group. The fact that we came here with dreams made us think that we would arrive in Brazil as a brotherly country, because many of them felt very attracted, for example, by football and the fact that the Brazilian team had many black players, so there was an image of a country very welcoming. But, when we get here, we are faced with a series of issues that exclude us: there is xenophobia and racism, which we do not know how to deal with”, says Chavonga. Paulo Chavonga addresses the daily life of Africans in Brazil – Gabryel Sampaio Artist born in Benguela (Angola), Paulo currently lives in São Paulo. He says that in his homeland, suffering is due to social inequality, not racism. “We come from a country where people at most suffered social inequality, but never for lack of references, for lack of opportunity and not this inequality due to race. I brought the stories of these people who are very silenced”. The filmmaker shows that racism in the country leads many African immigrants to reverse migration, that is, when immigrants leave Brazil for other countries or even to return to their homeland. “In the film they tell the dreams they had before coming to Brazil and the dreams they have here, I also show a reverse migration, of these people who came to Brazil to be able to seek better living conditions, but because of these stigmas, of this violence, they make their way back or go to other countries”, he explained. In addition to the unpleasantness, the film also addresses the joy of living in the country and the attraction of Africans to Brazil. “It is indeed a very happy people, the culture is very diverse and we are enchanted with the way of being in Brazil, with this mix, this joy. As I said about football, this racial diversity in the Brazilian team, it somehow attracts us. And the fact that Brazil also offers us a mix of experiences, this broadens our field of vision of the world when we arrive here”. The filmmaker intends, with the film, to open the dialogue between African and Brazilian immigrants. “The film opens the door to dialogue and also intends to question the Brazilian imaginary about the African and black immigrant, because Brazil has this mask of a super welcoming country, but it has questions that silence us and consume us from the inside. My objective with the film is to open a dialogue and also question the people, the Brazilian imagination, the African and black continent here in Brazil”. The short film was released last Tuesday (27th) at Cine Olido, in São Paulo and can now be watched on Youtube’s Canal Conecta Angola Brasil. The production is part of the exhibition “Where the rainbow hides”, which starts on July 8, at the Immigration Museum, in São Paulo and will also be shown there. Exhibition In addition to being a filmmaker, Paulo Chavonga is a poet and visual artist. In the artist’s individual exhibition, organized by the Angola Brasil connection collective through the project “Stories that paint Africa through the streets of São Paulo”, he shows works by him. Exhibition by Paulo Chavonga Where the rainbow hides – Gabryel Sampaio In the exhibition Where the rainbow hides, Chavonga makes connections between the trajectories of African immigrants, the daily experience in another country and the universe of artistic representation. The exhibition includes 60 paintings, an installation that reproduces a stall selling fabrics in Praça da República, two videos and 12 poems, which will be presented in writing or in audio throughout the Museum. On the opening day, the poems will be recited by the Angolan poets Ermi Pazo and Mwana N´gola. The project “Stories that paint Africa on the streets of São Paulo” focuses on the multiple relationships built between Angola and Brazil through the arts.

Agência Brasil