26 - 27 September 2025
Ana Vaz (1986) is one of the forefront Brazilian filmmakers and visual artists today. Her experimental, boundary-pusher films position her as a leading voice regarding the possibilities of cinema in terms of reinventing our perception of the world. She does so by playing with linear time and framing landscapes in original ways. Also, by bringing to the fore other forms of life other than humans, highlighting fauna and flora in specific environments.
Born in Brazil and having lived in Australia, France, and Portugal, Vaz has been advocating for the imbrication between memory, politics and ecology in a creative, unruly fashion. Far from conventions, she is not interested in teleological narratives, partially following the avant-garde tradition of names like North American, feminist filmmaker Maya Deren. Attuned with contemporary debates around decoloniality and Indigenous cosmovisions, she traces back the origins of capitalism and State violence, while pointing to the future by provoking a sensory experience through moving images.
Aligned with Vaz’s pioneering approach to critiquing global political economies and transcending traditional filmmaking canons, Ana Vaz: Sounds of the Past, Lights of the Future will include four screening sessions: her connection to her hometown as a trope in Departing from Brasília; the echoes of the failed modern project in Colonialism and Global Extractivism; her keenness to explore different film strategies in Cinematic Methodologies; and the inhuman dimension in Human/Nonhuman.
Spanning from 2008 to 2022, the films could also interchange positions, as each of her works condenses elements that cross over one another. This programme suggests a route, but the audience is encouraged to find new ones - and attest to Vaz’s intricate superposition of zones of interest. In a sense, this invitation to action mirrors the way Vaz herself welcomes her audience to connect the dots, emancipating the spectator at last.
Vaz’s works have been shown at the Locarno Film Festival, Berlinale Forum Expanded, Cinéma du Réel, MoMA Doc Fortnight, CPH: Dox, International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others.
In 2015, she won the Film Society of Lincoln Center Kazuko Trust Award for artistic excellence and innovation in moving-image.
Ana Vaz will be present in person for Q&As on both evenings.
This is the UK’s most comprehensive film programme dedicated to her work.
Curated by Guilherme Carréra and Xiang Fan.
Ana Vaz (1986) is one of the forefront Brazilian filmmakers and visual artists today. Her experimental, boundary-pusher films position her as a leading voice regarding the possibilities of cinema in terms of reinventing our perception of the world. She does so by playing with linear time and framing landscapes in original ways. Also, by bringing to the fore other forms of life other than humans, highlighting fauna and flora in specific environments.
Born in Brazil and having lived in Australia, France, and Portugal, Vaz has been advocating for the imbrication between memory, politics and ecology in a creative, unruly fashion. Far from conventions, she is not interested in teleological narratives, partially following the avant-garde tradition of names like North American, feminist filmmaker Maya Deren. Attuned with contemporary debates around decoloniality and Indigenous cosmovisions, she traces back the origins of capitalism and State violence, while pointing to the future by provoking a sensory experience through moving images.
Aligned with Vaz’s pioneering approach to critiquing global political economies and transcending traditional filmmaking canons, Ana Vaz: Sounds of the Past, Lights of the Future will include four screening sessions: her connection to her hometown as a trope in Departing from Brasília; the echoes of the failed modern project in Colonialism and Global Extractivism; her keenness to explore different film strategies in Cinematic Methodologies; and the inhuman dimension in Human/Nonhuman.
Spanning from 2008 to 2022, the films could also interchange positions, as each of her works condenses elements that cross over one another. This programme suggests a route, but the audience is encouraged to find new ones - and attest to Vaz’s intricate superposition of zones of interest. In a sense, this invitation to action mirrors the way Vaz herself welcomes her audience to connect the dots, emancipating the spectator at last.
Vaz’s works have been shown at the Locarno Film Festival, Berlinale Forum Expanded, Cinéma du Réel, MoMA Doc Fortnight, CPH: Dox, International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others.
In 2015, she won the Film Society of Lincoln Center Kazuko Trust Award for artistic excellence and innovation in moving-image.
Ana Vaz will be present in person for Q&As on both evenings.
This is the UK’s most comprehensive film programme dedicated to her work.
Curated by Guilherme Carréra and Xiang Fan.
Guilherme Carréra is a film researcher and curator. He holds a PhD in Film awarded by the University of Westminster, sponsored by the CAPES Foundation. Carréra is the author of Brazilian Cinema and the Aesthetics of Ruins (Bloomsbury Academic), winner of the Portuguese Association of Moving Image Researchers Award for best monograph and the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Award for best first monograph.
Xiang Fan teaches digital media and creative industries at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Contemporary Art Cinema Culture in China (2024), which was nominated for the 2025 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Awards. Her research interests include film festivals, digital distribution and exhibition cultures, women’s cinema, and independent and art cinema in Asia.
Xiang Fan teaches digital media and creative industries at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Contemporary Art Cinema Culture in China (2024), which was nominated for the 2025 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Awards. Her research interests include film festivals, digital distribution and exhibition cultures, women’s cinema, and independent and art cinema in Asia.
Programme
Friday 26 September, 8.45pm
Departing from Brasília + Colonialism and Global Extractivism + Q&A
The first two sessions in this programme dedicated to the work of Ana Vaz narrow in on the influence of Vaz's hometown Brasília, Brazil's capital city, while also exploring the marks of colonialism and extractivism.
Saturday 27 September, 6.30pm
Cinematic Methodologies + Human/Nonhuman + Q&A
The second two sessions in this programme centred upon the work of Ana Vaz investigate Vaz's interest in both the craft of filmmaking and the human/nonhuman dimension of the world.
Friday 26 September, 8.45pm
Departing from Brasília + Colonialism and Global Extractivism + Q&A
The first two sessions in this programme dedicated to the work of Ana Vaz narrow in on the influence of Vaz's hometown Brasília, Brazil's capital city, while also exploring the marks of colonialism and extractivism.
Saturday 27 September, 6.30pm
Cinematic Methodologies + Human/Nonhuman + Q&A
The second two sessions in this programme centred upon the work of Ana Vaz investigate Vaz's interest in both the craft of filmmaking and the human/nonhuman dimension of the world.
no. 236848.