Film Recommendation:
While we’re covering Brazil during the Bahian Renaissance, I think this movie is an important watch. It covers the Afro-Brazilian religion, Candomble, and rebellion in 17th-century Brazil. The story, I feel, is compelling and has a positive representation of black characters and the black struggle, but it also plays out as a hero’s journey story in a way. The cinematographer is also pretty cool.

Glauber Rocha called Ganga Zumba “a slow, sad anti-epic … the only film by a white director which did not take a paternalistic attitude toward blacks but rather identified with them.”