Us for us: narratives of COVID-19 in the quilombos of Pará

Abstract

• Even before the pandemic, the remaining quilombo communities have always faced a series of difficulties, such as the lack of public investment and infrastructure, precarious access to health services, prejudice, and the fight for the right to education and land. These difficulties have intensified even more during the pandemic. The documentary film “Nós Por Nós: Narrativas da COVID-19 nos Quilombos do Pará” addresses the story of quilombolas and non-quilombolas during the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the emergency collective action entitled “Sacaca and Malungu in the fight against the coronavirus”. Although the title refers to the "Quilombos of Pará", the film focuses on some specific communities, represented by the characters who participate in the documentary. In the first year of the pandemic, in 2020, the Coordination of Associations of the Remaining Quilombo Communities of Pará – Malungu established partnerships with several institutions to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus in quilombola territories. One of the collaborators was the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Amazonian Societies, Culture and Environment (Sacaca) of the Federal University of Western Pará (Ufopa), a partnership portrayed in the film. The initial objective of this action between Malungu and the Sacaca Center was to meet the specific demands of quilombola communities throughout the state. Over time, the focus became the production of informative materials adapted to the reality of these communities. The film features seven characters: Aurélio Borges, Dona Catarina, Salomão da Costa, Magno Nascimento, Leocádia Moraes, Luciana Carvalho and Veridiana do Nascimento. The documentary's settings are divided into three: the Laranjituba/África Community - a border area between the municipalities of Moju and Abaetetuba -, the Malungu headquarters in Belém do Pará, and different virtual environments. “Nós Por Nós” does not use a voice-over or “voice of god” to narrate the images. The film follows a characteristic of Cinema Verdade, where “the story is told through dialogues” (Júnior & Carvalho, 2017, p. 29). The documentary highlights the fundamental role of quilombola articulation during the COVID-19 pandemic in the state of Pará, while also revealing the creativity of these communities in developing mechanisms to cope with this social situation, forming support networks in the midst of a critical event marked by structures of suffering and inequality. “Nós Por Nós” is the result of a final course work and was the subject of film analysis in Gabriel Baena’s master’s dissertation in Anthropology. The film participated in events such as the 45th Annual Meeting of ANPOCS (2021) – receiving an honorable mention in the COMIS/ANPOCS Ana Galano Award –, the Tarrafa Film Festival (2021) and the IV Mostra Arandu de Filmes Etnográficos (2022).