Film

In southern Brazil, “invernada” means a time of winter, a place of shelter for the herds. Through popular language, the word came to name a rare episode of the country’s history of slavery: the Invernada dos Negros — a stronghold of Afro-descendants who keep alive the memory and struggle of the enslaved heirs of an old farm on the Santa Catarina plateau. Fragments of this striking history make up the photography and video project titled Invernada dos Negros, twice awarded under the National Prize for Afro-Brazilian Cultural Expressions of the Palmares Foundation (2010–2012). The project has generated exhibitions and educational actions across Brazilian regions and cities but has never been shown on television. The proposal is to revisit the images and sounds of the characters and places of the Invernada dos Negros in a documentary for television. At the center of the narrative is the ritualization of the photographic image of the Invernada’s characters, with the memories of the place as crossed and underlying storylines.