Evangelia Kranioti
Obscuro Barroco

Obscuro Barroco

Obscuro Barroco is an audiovisual project on the dizzying heights of gender in a land of extremes, comprising of a documentary feature (60’, Berlinale Panorama 2018), a photographic series and a two-channel video installation (Ecstasy Must Be Forgotten, 31’). The project as a whole explores the many facets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at a time when carnival and political struggles are converging. Since its immemorial origins, the carnival has been a moment of metamorphosis, when evil spells are countered against a background of inversion and social upheaval. Following the path of iconic transgender activist Luana Muniz (1961-2017), Obscuro Barroco addresses body politics, post-colonialism and identity issues, while questioning the desire for transformation of the body, both intimate and social.

Obscuro Barroco is an audiovisual project on the dizzying heights of gender in a land of extremes, comprising of a documentary feature (60’, Berlinale Panorama 2018), a photographic series and a two-channel video installation (Ecstasy Must Be Forgotten, 31’). The project as a whole explores the many facets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at a time when carnival and political struggles are converging. Since its immemorial origins, the carnival has been a moment of metamorphosis, when evil spells are countered against a background of inversion and social upheaval. Following the path of iconic transgender activist Luana Muniz (1961-2017), Obscuro Barroco addresses body politics, post-colonialism and identity issues, while questioning the desire for transformation of the body, both intimate and social.

« Obscuro Barroco is a filmic object that transforms infinitely, that devours infinitely: it is the mouth of Luana Muniz, a legendary figure of Rio de Janeiro’s night, that serves as the stolen point of entry to the city’s nocturnal incandescence. The film opens with a seductive ballet of luxuriant tropical vegetation caught in the sea breeze and bowing under heavy raindrops. The theatrical beauty of these evergreen trees is so intense that it appears to border upon the artificial: these images set the stage for a reversal of perspective in which nature itself seems factitious. After all, perhaps we have already ingested this greenery. It will reappear in the glittering decor of a carnival float, the swirling gateway to an artificial paradise that a healer blows in our face. It is our very capacity for metempsychosis that plays out in this film, this strange and unknown faculty through which our soul can move towards, through and inside other bodies. A true question of cinema, then. (…) »

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