WINDHOEK– AfricAvenir Windhoek, in partnership with On Land Productions, presents the Namibian Premiere of the Angolan-Brazilian-Namibian film, “Jogo de Corpo” (Body Games) on Wednesday, Arpil at quarter-past-seven O’clock (19H15) at the Goethe-Centre in Windhoek. Entrance is N$10.
The director of this film, Richard Pakleppa, and the Brazilian film crew will attend the screening and be available to answer questions. In the film, a descendent of African slaves, Capoeira Mestre Cobra Mansa, looks in Africa for what he does not have in Brazil. ”Jogo de Corpo”/”Body Games” tells a story of combat games, dances and music that connect Brazil and Africa from the time of slavery to the present.
The film a joint venture by Pakleppa, Matthias Röhrig Assunção and Mestre Cobra Mansa is Portuguese with English subtitles and won the Ousmane Sembene Prize ZIFF 2014 and the Best Editing Prize at the Portsmouth International Film Festival in 2014. It has already screened in Salvador, el El Salvador; Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; Lisbon in Portugal; Munich in Germany and, Bergen, and Rome in Italy. The Angolan Premiere of the film will take place next month parallel to the screening in Windhoek.
Jogo de Corpo/Body Games presents a sensual tapestry of combat games from both sides of the Atlantic. Jogo de Corpo/Body Games tells a story driven by Mestre Cobra Mansa’s need to understand the ancestry of his art form, Capoeira, as part of a wider concern with his Afro-Brazilian heritage.
The search for roots starts in Rio where, as a 12 year old street child Cobra found survival and self-esteem in the games of Capoeira. He tells how through Capoeira he grew into Brazil’s black movement and discovered his identity as an Afro Brazilian.
By playing Capoeira and engaging with Capoeira masters from Rio and Bahia, Cobra takes us into a world of Africa in Brazil. It is the world of “Capoeira Angola” where Capoeira players kick, spin and dodge to songs that evoke African ancestors, the world of slaves and masters and a mythical place called “Angola”.
In the real Angola Cobra Mansa follows the traces of a powerful Brazilian myth about Capoeira’s African origins. This myth links Capoeira to a legendary Angolan game called Engolo – the Zebra dance. His search takes him to remote villages in southern Angola where Engolo players teach him “the art of bending with the wind” and tell of Engolo players who enter the game through being possessed by their ancestors.
Through an exchange of Capoeira and Engolo in the dusty villages of Angola, Cobra begins to understand the affinities and differences between combat games played on both sides of the Atlantic. Besides Engolo he finds other African combat games that reminds him of the 1970s street fighting in Brazil. In southern Angola he also finds musical bows that are strikingly similar to the Brazilian berimbau, an instrument played by Capoeiristas.
In Jogo do Corpo we meet colourful characters on both sides of the Atlantic: Capoeira masters Boca Rica, Celso, Morais and Felipe and Engolo players Kahani, Muhalambadji and Lombolene. In Angola Cobra discovers that the rural cattle culture and female initiation rituals are cultural contexts which are very different from the urban contexts of capoeira.