Dry Ground Burning (2022) + Q&A w/ director Joana Pimenta | Experimental Film Lab

Dry Ground Burning
(Joana Pimenta & Adirley Queirós, 2022, 153 min, Brazil, Portuguese with English subtitles, DCP)

-- Q&A to follow with director Joana Pimenta

Presented by the Experimental Film Lab at the Franklin Humanities Institute 
and Screen/Society

Just released from prison, Léa (Léa Alves Silva) returns home to the Brasilia favela of Sol Nascente and joins up with her half-sister Chitara (Joana Darc Furtado), the fearless leader of an all-female gang that steals and refines oil from underground pipes and sells gasoline to a clandestine network of motorcyclists. Living in constant opposition to Jair Bolsonaro’s fiercely authoritarian and militarized government, Chitara’s women claim the streets for themselves as a declaration of radical political resistance on behalf of ex-cons and the oppressed. A provocative portrait of Brazil’s dystopian contemporary moment that blends documentary with narrative fiction and genre elements, the latest film by Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós (Once There Was Brasilia) offers a unique vision of the country’s possible future.

“I have never seen a film quite like Dry Ground Burning.” – Michael Sicinski, In Review Online

“The incendiary power of Dry Ground Burning, a feminist gangster movie from Brazil… Sodium-lit nightscapes filled with steely, gun-toting dames recall the glossy crime dramas of Michael Mann (Heat)… I’m compelled to draw a connection between Dry Ground Burning and Mad Max: Fury Road, two pyromaniacal dystopian westerns in which lawless women are not only their own saviors but everyone else’s, too. Critic’s Pick!” – Beatrice Loayza, The New York Times

“An astonishing work of survival and resilience... packs a pulpy punch, yet is also rooted in an urgent political reality.” – Phuong Le, The Guardian

Joana Pimenta is a filmmaker, Assistant Professor in Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University, and Director of the Film Study Center at Harvard. Her latest film, Dry Ground Burning, co-directed with Adirley Queirós, probes the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, and it was shot in Sol Nascente, in the periphery of Brasília, Brazil. Dry Ground Burning premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, screened at the New York Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, among many others, where it received more than 30 awards, followed by theatrical releases in the United States, France, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, among other countries.

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The Experimental Film Lab (EFL) is a group of projects aimed at redefining and broadening the contemporary discourse around "experimental film" by addressing academic biases, fostering inclusion and diversity, and expanding the conversation through a conference, podcast, website, screenings, and an archival project focused on African American cinema. EFL's screening series presents films that use experimentation as a method for improvisation, political friction, and playful disruption. These works resist fixed meanings, push boundaries through unpredictability, and present us with the possibility of something yet to come.

EFL's co-directors are:
Shambhavi Kaul, Associate Professor of the Practice of Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Franklin Cason, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Art, Art History & Visual Studies

Screen/Society screenings are free and open to the public.

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