Bahia

Bahia

“And when the guitar whines in the hands of serenades singer, in the bustling streets of the agitated city, woman, do not you doubt for a minute. Attends the call and come. Bahia waiting with their daily feast. Your eyes will be flooded in the picturesque, but also to the misery grieve for those left over colonial streets where they rise, violent, weak, ugly, the modern skyscrapers.

Do you hear? It is the insistent call of the drums in the mysterious night. If you come, they will ring even higher, with the powerful touch of holy call, and black gods come from the jungles of Africa to dance in your honor, with the most beautiful dresses, dancing the unforgettable dances.

Where is the truth and where is the lie when we talk about Bahia? You never know what is truth and what is legend in this city. Here the lyrical mystery and the tragic poverty are mixed with truth and legend. Ah! woman, this city is multifaceted and uneven. His eternal beauty comes from the past as powerful as it looks, feels and smells, sensual beauty that hides a world of misery and pain”.

 Jorge Amado 

The aim of this project is to document the roots and the consequences of the violence and hope in the Bahia State in Brazil. This is a cinematic and poetic exploration about the life in this vast human territory in constantly change.

Currently, Brazil is the paradigm of Latin America in both, economic development and intercultural harmony, and probably the State of Bahia is the best example of this situation. Bahia is a land of mixed origins and rugged landscape of urban inequality, violence and at the same time, an unconditional love for life.

The history of this place moves between the conquest and coexistence. Between the universal bipolarity of harmony and chaos, hope and despair.

I started this project in 2009 and since then I have been exploring the life of this place, his people, his life, his daily drama. Looking for those metaphorical conjunctions that are hidden in cotidian life and creating an orginal map of the visual poematic of our time.

The main objective of this project is to create an emotional portrait of a place and time where the violence and the sensuality coexist. A place where the tragic descomposition of human life combined perfectly with the magic realism of Latin America.