Trauma e fuga na Trilogia da Bicha Preta

Abstract

This research focuses on contemporary Brazilian cinema created by Black filmmakers in the short film format, aiming to understand how the collective colonial trauma affecting subjects of the Black diaspora emerges cinematically in the trilogia da bicha preta (trilogy of the black queer man), a set of three movies directed by the baiano filmmaker Juan Rodrigues that constitute the corpus of this study: Arco da Liberdade (2015), Arco do Medo (2017), and Arco do Tempo (2020). We seek to understand how trauma is addressed in these films and how the concept of “escape”, as proposed by philosopher Dènetem Touam Bona and supported by other Black intellectuals, can contribute to a critical perspective on Rodrigues's works. Additionally, we aim to explore how, through his essayistic gestures in his movies, Juan Rodrigues performs subjectivities beyond trauma, crafting fabulations, reparations, and possibilities for life. Finally, we seek to understand how these films foster micropolitical resistance to the colonial-capitalist unconscious, according to Suely Rolnik's concept.