Alcilene Cavalcante de Oliveira

History, gender and audiovisual: memories in dispute after dictatorship (Brazil and Argentina? 1980-2020)

This (institutional) research project is a development of previous studies on gender and cinema from the last democratic transition period in Brazil and Argentina (1980s). If in previous projects we turned initially to the analysis of films, of fiction, made by women in those countries, extending later the analysis to the cinematographic realization of men, although restricting the research spatially to Brazil, in this project we broadened the scope of the research sources to audiovisual artifacts (films and series), of fiction and documentaries, made in Brazil and Argentina in the post-dictatorship, to scan the representations of gender and the staging of the past present in this cultural production. In this way, the time frame of the research is extended, no longer restricting us to the 1980s, considering that Brazilian and Argentinean historiographies, in recent years, have revisited the period and found that expensive issues to the passage of regime were not exhausted there. They point out that constitutive elements of periods of democratic transition, such as the confrontation with the past of each country's recent dictatorship, which in turn implies transitional justice (the right to memory and truth, justice and reparation), continued to reverberate in the following decades (in particular in the first two decades of the 21st century). This past, which is difficult to engender representations, interpretations, and clashes of memory, configuring political disputes in the present, has been detailed by specialized literature. Audiovisual productions, which circulate in public space (through exhibitions and approaches in cultural circuits, the media, and schools) and constitute sources and objects of history teaching in each of these countries, configure cultural memories, entering into the series of disputes about the past. What artifacts can be highlighted to address such issues? What memories do they constitute and how do they do it? What are their aesthetic strategies? What dialogues can be held with the literature of testimony, historical documents, and the reports of the Truth Commissions? What relationship can be established between audiovisual artifacts? their staging? and the historiographies of each country? What is the reception of these audiovisual artifacts and the questions they generate in specialized reviews (periodicals, media, blogs)? What is the relationship between the audiovisual productions of Brazil and Argentina in the period in question, in terms of gender representation and past staging? Therefore, these are questions that guide this research, which is inserted in the perspective of cultural history at the interface with political history and the history of present time. It is based on two interlinked hypotheses: audiovisual production integrates the political dynamics of the post-dictatorship, in which the construction of senses about the past acquires centrality, constituting cultural memory, and, in the same way, dialogues with the questions raised by feminisms, mainly in what concerns gender and sexual relations..

Situation: In progress; Nature: Research.

History and Gender on Screen: Brazilian films from the democratic transition period (1974-1989)

This research proposal consists in analyzing fiction feature films made in Brazil during the period of democratic transition, scrutinizing the dialogues that these cultural artifacts established with the expensive issues of that period, such as the position on the recent past of the civil-military dictatorship, especially the political violence perpetrated during that period. In addition, it seeks to highlight the gender relations engendered in films. It is an approach that is inserted in the perspective of cultural history at the interface with political history. It is based on two interlinked hypotheses: cultural production, especially films, integrated the political dynamic of the transition period, in which the construction of meanings about the past gained centrality and, in the same way, dialogued with the issues dear to feminism in the period, especially in terms of gender relations. It is also considered that films are "places of memory".