A Bruddah’s Mind

(Cabeça de Nêgo)

Déo Cardoso / Brazil / 2020 / 86 min

  • CineCeará - Ibero-American Film Festival

    Best Feature Film

  • Santa Barbara International Film Festival

  • San Francisco Latino Film Festival

  • Cine Latino Minneapolis Saint Paul Film Festival

  • Black Cinema Meeting Zózimo Bulbul: Brazil, Africa, the Caribbean and Other Diasporas

  • Curitiba International Film Festival

  • La Plata Audiovisual Arts Festival

  • Tiradentes Film Festival

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Portuguese with English subtitles

With Lucas Limeira, Nicoly Mota, Jennifer Joingley, Mayara Braga.

Based on real events, this political drama fuses Brazilian history with international anti-racist movements. Saulo, a black introvert student and fan of the Black Panther Movement, challenges his school in the largely white city of Fortaleza.

After Saulo’s reaction to a racial insult from a classmate, his teachers describe him as a young delinquent and swiftly attempt to expel him ignoring his usually calm and articulate demeanor. Outraged, Saulo refuses to leave the school until justice is done. His solitary occupation ends up challenging the school’s board and mobilizes the entire community. The students did not anticipate, however, the principal’s extreme reaction.

Echoing events from around the world, A Bruddah’s Mind effectively calls out racism, misogyny, and militarism. It reminds us about the importance of activism, political engagement, and the sacrifices that come with it.

Press

“Highly Recommended. The film is compelling and accessible for audiences. It serves as a door to open discussion about education as a basic human right.” – Rachael Dreyer, Head of Research Services for Special Collections, Pennsylvania State University, EMRO

“A fascinating curiosity of a film, with topical resonance, in a year partly marked by fervent expressions of Black Lives Matter issues and protests driven by righteous racial indignation.” – Josef Woodard, The Santa Barbara Independent

“The relevance of Bruddah's Mind is directly linked to the political issues that are mobilizing the country now…and Déo understands this with a necessary lucidity.” – Vertentes Do Cinema

“The strength of Cardoso’s seemingly simple film is that it’s an impassioned voice, an advocate for protest, free speech, institutional, cultural, and social transparency, but most importantly progress.” – Paul Risker, DMovies.com

“Bruddah's Mind effectively calls out (take a breath) racism, misogyny, militarism, the ruling class, and the cooption of TV news, though the political commentary embedded organically in the storyline gives way in the last reel to overt polemics.” – Michael Fox, KQED

About the Director
Déo Cardoso was born in the United States, from Brazilian parents, and of Afro and Native descent (mixed race). A director and screenwriter, Cardoso has a specialization in Dramatic Writing from Dragão do Mar Institute of Art and Culture (Fortaleza, CE), and holds a Master of Fine Arts diploma in Cinema from Ohio University, United States. After writing and directing 5 fiction short films and 2 short documentaries, Déo is launching his first fiction feature film, A BRUDDAH’S MIND, financed by ANCINE, the Brazilian Film Agency.
Notes on Film

“Since I started studying and making films, my creative process is grounded in what I experience daily. Being born in the United States to Brazilian parents, and being a mixed-race individual, allowed me to transit in historically oppressed communities of both countries. Thus, my films seek to express concerns and feelings provoked by social contexts that I witness. Making films to me is a means to reflect creatively on issues that I consider important for the development of human evolution. Filmmaking allows me the possibility to invite people to enjoy and/or to reflect on the human condition. That is the spirit in which Cabeça de Nêgo (A Bruddah’s Mind) was conceived. The film arises as a natural development of my social and aesthetic concerns. In sociopolitical terms, the film explores the consequences of the recent massive budget cuts in Brazilian education along with corruption practices and how a group of students decide to face that.

A Bruddah’s Mind shares the pursuit for a humanistic cinema, which believes in the strength and potential of cinema as a tool for fostering human understanding through compelling storytelling.”

– Déo Cardoso, Director