Dry Ground Burning
A Must-See at ICA’s Frames of Representation
Andreia Vieira (centre) in Dry Ground Burning, dirs. Adirley Queirós & Joana Pimenta, 2022.
The ICA has announced the seventh edition of its film festival, Frames of Representation, running from 5-12 May 2022.
The opening night film, Dry Ground Burning, directed by Adirley Queirós and Joana Pimenta, is a must-see. A compelling extolment of the marginalised in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, the film portrays the inhabitants of Ceilândia, a district on the periphery of Brasília, through the lens of a women’s gang fighting for survival.
Led by the fearless Chitara (Joana Darc Furtado), the women run a gasoline ring, having devised a smoothly-run operation to steal oil from an underground pipe and distribute the fuel through a biker gang known as ‘the motoboys’. The film is predominantly seen from the point of view of Léa (Léa Alves da Silva), Chitara’s ex-convict sister, who seeks a more stable and less violent source of income than the drug trafficking she was convicted for. Returning to her neighbourhood after 8 years in prison, Léa no longer recognises the home she left: militarised police vans patrol the streets at night, drones buzz overhead, a curfew forces everyone to stay home after 9pm, and the entire favela has been made federal land on which authorities are building a huge prison. Defined by its staunch political stance and its fiery aesthetics, Dry Ground Burning is a film about the discarded, the forgotten, the sidelined, and their resistance.
Joana Darc Furtado in Dry Ground Burning, dirs. Adirley Queirós & Joana Pimenta, 2022.
Merging aesthetics with politics, the filmmakers’ gaze is shown through their political vision: another worker at Chitara’s refinery, Andreia (Andreia Vieira), runs for district deputy in an attempt to reclaim the neighbourhood for the people who live there. As she raps her rousing political slogans from an open moving truck, a sense of hope is instilled in witnessing organised group resistance to the carceral state. This hope is fleeting, though, as the scene then cuts to a massive Bolsonaro rally. The presentation of political hopelessness in Brazil is clear: the far-right reigns strong, and a small party fighting for prisoners’ rights in a favela stands no chance against those with money and power.
Despite this dark discernment of political futility, long takes and extended sequences construct a sense of abundance throughout the film: from long monologues, to the ending of the film, which is one perfect final shot, followed by another, followed by another. An extended scene of an evangelical preacher’s service draws parallels to the deification of Bolsonaro, and a 360-degree slow pan among a crowd of Bolsonaro supporters chanting “the captain has arrived” is haunting. In opposition, Chitara is presented as a quasi-mythological heroic figure: overthrowing the rule of militarised police forces may be a long shot, but any resistance is better than no resistance. One incendiary scene shows Chitara dismantling and burning an armoured police van with the motoboys. These images evoke apocalypse: a heavy and fitting response to increasing authoritarian right-wing rule in Brazil.
Léa Alves da Silva (left) and Joana Darc Furtado (right) in Dry Ground Burning, dirs. Adirley Queirós & Joana Pimenta, 2022.
From the opening shot of a roaring fire, to the warm, dry crackling of burning cigarettes as a near-continuous soundtrack throughout the film, the sonic qualities of Dry Ground Burning are striking. In the mechanical scenes of Chitara’s makeshift oil refinery, the rhythmic clanging of hand-made machinery provides a stable contrast to scenes of fireworks, flares, and growling motorbikes. These grainy, abrasive sounds ground the film in reality, and in the concept of burning: emotionally, politically, and literally.
Throughout the film, the arid landscape of Sol Nascente, one of the continent’s largest favelas, is a real yet inescapably cinematic setting. Fiction merges with reality as non-professional actors play versions of themselves in lived-in locations, and their heroic mythologisation is contrasted with, or rather necessitated by, the stark truths of incarceration and poverty. In its synthesis of fiction and documentary, Dry Ground Burning is a force to be reckoned with, just like the women portrayed within it.
Dry Ground Burning is screening at Frames of Representation at the ICA on May 5th. Across 8 days of screenings, the full programme includes 14 films from 4 continents and 17 countries, as well as discussions, workshops, live performances, and more. Buy your tickets here.
