São Palco - an Afropolitan City A film by Jasper Chalcraft and Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji

What do African artists who arrive in Brazil bring with them on their journey? How do Brazil's African diasporas interact - the new creative diaspora and the historic one that turned the Atlantic into a cemetery? What stages are sought out, occupied or constructed, and then filled with the performances of artists who cross the ocean? Ancestral identities are updated in performances that construct an Afropolitan present in a metropolis where it is necessary to be bold, to colour the grey. São Palco - an Afropolitan City presents the city of São Paulo itself as a kind of meta-stage occupied by artists from Togo, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, among other African nations, in dialogue with the Brazilian population and all of its openings, contradictions and tensions.

Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of São Paulo. Coordinator of the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology, PAM – Research in Musical Anthropology, and the Núcleo de Artes Afro-Brasileiras (Center for Afro-Brazilian Arts); vice-coordinator of the Group of Visual Anthropology. Author of the books Filmar o Musicar, Imagem-violência and A música e o risco, co-author of Lá do Leste (2013) and co-editor of several volumes on visual anthropology and the anthropology of performance.  She has directed or co-directed several ethnographic films, including: São Palco – An Afropolitan City; Afro-Sampas, Woya Hayi Mawe - Where are you going to?, Tabuluja (Wake up!), Fabrik Funk,  Art and the street and Cinema de quebrada. CNPq Research Productivity Fellow.

 

British anthropologist, filmmaker, and heritage specialist working with universities and museums in the UK, Italy and Brazil. His publications include The Making of Heritage: seduction and disenchantment (co-edited); "Collaborative post-production", and “Decolonizing the site: the problems and pragmatics of World Heritage in Italy, Libya and Tanzania”. Co-directed São Palco – An Afropolitan City, Afro-Sampas, Woya Hayi Mawe – Where Are You Going to? and Tabuluja – Wake Up!, award-winning films at the Ecofalante Film Festival 2025, ANPOCS (Ana Maria Galano Awards 2020 and 2021), ABA (Pierre Verger Awards 2020 and 2022), and nominated for the UK AHRC Research in Film Awards in 2017.

                                                                                            

📅 Date: Friday, 30th January 2026

🕒 Time: 10:15 – 13:00