Decolonizing cinema and memory of the Brazilian dictatorship:

documentaries made by women after 1985

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the reconstruction of Brazilian dictatorship’s memory from the perspective of women filmmakers. For this purpose, it is based on documentary films authored by women after the dictatorship (post-1985). It highlights disputes on memory, identity and trauma and their intersection with gender issues.  It also demonstrates how documentary films made by women constitute original, differentiated, specific and personal memorial narratives about the Brazilian military dictatorship; memories that are also permeated by the experience of gender. This work is part of the research movement that has been decolonizing the history of cinema, namely of Brazilian cinema, and specifically through the recognition of the role of female directors in the reconstruction of memory.