Brazil: An Inconvenient History (2000)
47 min
At first glance Brazil appears to be an alluring playground of exciting carnivals, sultry samba, divine football and a vibrantly diverse people. But behind this dazzling facade lies a disturbing story of history’s largest-ever slave population. Astonishingly Brazil, a Portuguese colony, received ten-times more African slaves than the numbers transported to North America. This programme looks at those estimated 4 million people with whose blood, sweat and tears Brazil was built. Without them none of Brazil’s present-day success and appeal would exist. Using contemporary testimonies, this film takes a hard look at Brazil s dark history through the eyes of those slaves. They lived in squalid conditions on remote plantations or in teeming cities harboring fatal diseases. Most Africans survived only seven years in this ‘New World’.
- Release date
- April 29, 2000
- Country of origin
- Not yet available
- Music
- Dimitri Tchamouroff
Cast
- Sean Barrett as Self - Narrator
- Joao Jose Reis as Self - Historian, University of Bahia
- John Hemming as Self - Historian - Director of Survival International
- Hakim Adi as Self - Historian: African and Black British History
- Peter Fry as Self - Anthropologist, National Museum, Rio de Janeiro
- David Birmingham as Self - Historian: African Slave Trade
- Cid Teixeira as Self - Historian: Brazilian Slavery - Descendant of Slaves
- Sylvio Garcez as Self - Descendant of Plantation Owner
- Geraldo Lopes de Lima as Self - Former Cajaiba Plantation Worker
- Marilene Rosa Da Silva as Self - Historian, University of Rio de Janeiro - Descendant of Slaves
Crew
- Phil Grabsky · Director
- Phil Grabsky · Writer
- Dimitri Tchamouroff · Composer
- Jonathan Partridge · Cinematographer
- Phil Reynolds · Editor