The Oxford Handbook of Brazilian Cinema brings together innovative chapters that address a wide range of topics relating to cinema and cinema culture in Brazil. Including chapters that focus on the reception and production of films and on how global trends in filmmaking have shaped Brazilian cinema's practices, this Handbook moves beyond a geographically specific notion of national cinema, to ask not what is Brazilian cinema but, rather, what is cinema in Brazil? This question is developed in three sections, “histories,” “spaces,” and “genres and media.” Chapters in the section “Histories” explore diverse trajectories of Brazilian film culture and practices, including film criticism, archival endeavours, black filmmaking and films made during the Covid pandemic. The impact of historical contexts is explored in a conversation with women filmmakers, which delves into the devastating effects of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro on production from a female perspective. The section “Spaces” reflects the geographic diversity of cinema in Brazil in chapters that depart from the dominant focus on Rio-São Paulo to examine films from marginalized spaces, including the Amazon and the predominantly non-white urban peripheries, and films that pay attention to queer spatial practices. The very space of filmic experience is examined in chapters focusing on movie theater architecture and the virtual spatiality of new media platforms. A conversation with black filmmakers in Brazil considers the historical condition of marginality as a productive space for filmmaking today. Chapters dealing with “Genres and Media” address questions of film form and style in essay films, horror movies, musical comedies (known as chanchadas) and art films, addressing in turn their connections to other forms of media and extra filmic forms. The section concludes with a conversation with indigenous filmmakers that reflects on how their audiovisual work disrupts generic representations of “Indigeneity” pervasive in Brazilian culture and media. Whilst providing a rich and broad coverage, this Handbook does not intend to present an encyclopaedic overview of Brazilian cinema. Moving beyond the singular “Brazilian cinema,” the objective is to examine cinematic histories, spaces and medias and genres as interpretive strategies for thinking about what cinema is in Brazil.
