Abstract

FILMASPORA is an inaugural study of peripheral cinema made by Afro-descendant peoples in Portugal, henceforth named “popular diaspora cinema”: films produced with meagre budgets and low-cost equipment by amateur filmmakers. Films of this type have been studied in other geographical contexts, both as diaspora cinema (in Europe) and as slum cinema (in Latin America), but films produced by diasporas in Portugal are yet to be studied. FILMASPORA aims to bridge this gap, by specifically focusing on the themes echoing from these manifestations as well as their modes of production and distribution. The diaspora is seen here as a privileged place to address issues of identity and belonging across the multiple agencies and territorialities in which Afro descendant peoples are involved while challenging the place of subalternity occupied by their authors in Portuguese society. Which identities do communities of Afro-descendant in Portugal materialise through audiovisuals? And how do these materialities reiterate or contest their condition as inhabitants and builders of the urban peripheries? By answering these questions, FILMASPORA will shed light on an unusual public face of Portugal, in this case, as a country of immigration and of identities that are typically concealed from authorized narratives around being Portuguese and representing the Portuguese. An example is the urban landscape where such films are directed: territories made invisible by public policies – self-produced neighbourhoods, rehousing, wastelands etc. – which tell stories of violence while simultaneously confirming the peripheries as places of active cultural production, in contradiction to the stigma with which they are viewed. Starting with the field of film studies, FILMASPORA will dialogue with pioneering research on Afro-descendant communities in Portugal: firstly, studies on other artistic expressions, namely graffiti and creole rap, which have offered the first counter-narratives about young urban peripheries and have thus deconstructed the stigma associated with them; secondly, urban studies concerned with transformations in the peripheral territories, where many Afro-descendant communities live; thirdly studies on institutional racism addressing racial and social segregation and exclusion, resulting from an interpretation of the colonial past as exceptional and non-violent. In fact, popular diaspora films denounce post-colonial tensions, which, agonized and transformed in the context of the diaspora, draw attention to practices of segregation and exclusion that have survived the end of colonialism. Finally, FILMASPORA will engage in a dialogue with the film studies field, simultaneously contributing to an expansion of the field and debating how popular diaspora cinema is contributing to the "decolonization of the gaze" that is taking place in the visual culture field. This cinematographic movement is generating new agents – directors, producers and spectators – who are playing a leading role in creating visual tools capable of subverting the most canonical and Eurocentric cinematographic approaches. Methodologically, this project will: 1) collect and systematize peripheral films made in the Lisbon metropolitan area; 2) map filming, production and distribution locations; 3) elaborate a digital database, whose continuity can be ensured, in order to make the films available to future research projects, film critics and viewers. The latter will be the main output of this research project, which, by highlighting an alternative cine-geography of the Lisbon metropolitan area, will confirm urban peripheral territories as places that are neither anomalous nor marginal, where an emerging film culture is being consolidated. All these activities will be anchored by a series of workshops, where the main issues addressed by the popular diaspora films will be debated, and by two seminars provided by the project's consultants. As an exploratory study, FILMASPORA will focus on the Lisbon metropolitan area. However, it is expected that further applications will emerge to extend this research to the whole country in the near future and to conduct comparative research with other European cities. FILMASPORA relies on a multidisciplinary team from the fields of anthropology, sociology, and film studies and combines research on Afro-descendant communities with film analysis, a process that will be expanded throughout the workshops included in this project.

Team