QUEBRANTE

Forum Expanded 2024

A spell breaking, QUEBRANTE traverses the caves, ruins, and phantasmagorias of the Trans-Amazonian BR230 Highway, portraying its stones and its ghosts. Set in the tiny town of Rurópolis (Pará) – the very first one ever built on the Highway, to serve as a base for the workers constructing the road – QUEBRANTE follows Ms. Erismar, known in the region as The Cave Woman. The retired elementary school teacher was the one who discovered the region’s caves. She would enter the dark unknown holes and explore their expanses with only a candle in her hands and a lighter tied to her pants.
A huge nationalist propaganda effort, part of the progress and development project of Brazil, the Trans-Amazonian Highway was implemented during the civic-military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985, and it is today still a warm scar of the wrecked dream of the country’s history.
QUEBRANTE is a conversation between the moon and the stones, and freely inspired by Robert Smithson’s project The Truly Underground Cinema (1971) and Maya Deren’s film The Very Eye of Night (1958).

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by Janaina Wagner Brazil 2024 Portuguese 23’ Colour International premiere | Documentary form

Crew

Director	Janaina Wagner
Screenplay	Janaina Wagner
Cinematography	Lucas Barbi
Editing	Yuyan Wang
Music	Carla Boregas
Sound Design	Ricardo Zollner
Producer	Janaina Wagner

World sales

Square Eyes

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Photos

Janaina Wagner

Artist and filmmaker Janaina Wagner works across video, drawing and installation. Currently a PhD fellow at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in France, she aims to present a critical understanding of the ways in which humans impose systems of order and control upon their surroundings.

Filmography

2011 A DOENÇA DA MORTE (The Sickness of Death); 10 min. 2013 MORTINHOS (Little Dead Ones); 5 min. 2014 TERRENO (Terrain); 9 min. · PROGRESSO (Progress); 4 min. 2015 AVISO DE INCÊNDIO; video installation, 30 min. 2016 CRIATURA (Creature); 10 min. 2017 LOBISOMEM (Werewolf); 18 min. 2018 VENTURA; 12 min. 2019 LICANTROPIA (Lycantrophy); 27 min. 2020 CÃES MARINHEIROS (Sailors Dogs); 7 min. 2021 ESTRADAS, FANTASMAS (Ghosts, Roads); 10 min. · CURUPIRA E A MÁQUINA DO DESTINO (Curupira and the machine of the destiny); 24 min. 2022 GREEN FLESH, GREEN FLASH; 9 min. 2024 A MALA DA NOITE (The Bag of the Night); 70 min. · QUEBRANTE