Amid the debris: ruins of underdevelopment in contemporary Brazilian documentary

This thesis defines an aesthetics of ruins in contemporary Brazilian documentary. It examines strategies of spatial representation employed by present-day documentary-makers and places their films into three groups. The first focuses on the federal capital, Brasília (The Age of Stone (2013) and White Out, Black In (2014)); the second investigates the former federal capital, Rio de Janeiro (ExPerimetral (2016), The Harbour (2013), Tropical Curse (2016), and HU Enigma (2011)); and the third explores Native territories (Corumbiara: They Shoot Indians, Don’t They? (2009), Tava, The House of Stone (2012), Two Villages, One Path (2008), and Guarani Exile (2011)). In portraying ruinscapes in different ways, the thesis argues that these unconventional films articulate critiques of the notions of progress and (under)development in the Brazilian nation. It addresses this body of contemporary films in relation to the legacies of Cinema Novo, Tropicália and Cinema Marginal, asking how the present-day films dialogue with or depart from this precedent. In exploring this dialogue, the selected films challenge not only documentary-making conventions but also the country’s official narrative. In this regard, the thesis argues that the ruins of Brazil are the ruins of underdevelopment, as framed by this particular body of films.