Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

A film geography is discussed here in the analysis of the contemporary Brazilian documentary-film Rio Doce/CDU (Adelina Pontual, 2013) in relation to the representation of place and identity through a cinematic urban experience. This work establishes a conversation between film studies and the ‘new’ cultural geography as a way to a potentially useful cross-disciplinary theoretical framework, for commenting on the intrinsic relationship that exists between the city and its cinematic counterpart. To fully understand how the urban landscape relates to its cinematic image, it is necessary to examine how the representation of its geography works within the paradigm of film representation of the real and the fictional space. This paper, thus, presents an overview on the production of visual imaginations and urbanscapes put into action by the cinematic apparatus. The discussion evolves around a cinematic geography that is built and related to the geographic concepts of space and place that are associated to the real place where cultural identities formed. An analysis of the contemporary Brazilian documentary-film, Rio Doce/CDU (2013) directed by Adelina Pontual, is presented considering the moving images of two Brazilian cities: Olinda and Recife. These urban spaces are considered as a way of commenting on the representation of both real and filmed spaces (geographic and cinematic) which are framed within a cultural depiction of space perception that enables new understandings about place and identity.