feminist elsewheres: 
Finding Norma: Film and Video Works by Norma Bahia Pontes

The second program of feminist elsewheres film and workshop series 2026 focuses on filmmaker, video artist, critic, and essayist Norma Bahia Pontes (1941–2010) whose singular trajectory unfolded across Brazil, France, and the United States. Emerging from Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement and its understanding of cinema as a means of social and political conscientização, Pontes went on to make anti-colonial films in Paris in the late 1960s, where she studied with Jean Rouch. While living in exile in New York in the 1970s, during Brazil’s military dictatorship, she extended this politically engaged practice into feminist video activism, working alongside her then-partner Rita Moreira. Moving across languages, technologies, and political contexts, Pontes left behind a transnational body of work whose dispersed traces continue to expand the histories of Brazilian, feminist, and queer moving images. In 1973, Claudia von Alemann and Helke Sander invited her to the First International Women's Film Seminar in Berlin to present her video film LESBIAN MOTHERS (1972), but she was unable to attend due to visa issues.

Media scholar, curator, filmmaker and artist Lívia Perez will introduce the short film program on October 10. This will be followed by a conversation with Perez about her artistic research into Pontes’s life and fragmentary archive. Her three-channel video installation FINDING NORMA (Lívia Perez, USA 2023) will be on view in the Arsenal foyer until the end of October. On October 11, Perez will lead a workshop at the feminist elsewheres project space (12pm-4pm), giving insights into her practice, which explores the archive as a space for encounters across images and generations.

LES ANTILLAIS (France 1967) was filmed in Paris and follows five Antillean immigrants. The film focuses on their understanding of colonialism and explores questions regarding the emergence of an anticolonial and national consciousness. CHANTS BRÉSILIENS (France 1967) is a portrait of musician Edu Lobo and Brazil’s politically engaged song movement. The film intertwines his music with the political and social realities of the country during the military dictatorship. BAHIA CAMARÁ (Brazil 1968) continues the exploration of forms of resistance. Filmed in Bahia, the film examines Afro-Brazilian practices such as capoeira, maculelê and candomblé, tracing stories of persecution, survival and transformation. Part of the video series Living in New York City, SHE HAS A BEARD (Norma Bahia Pontes, Rita Moreira, USA 1975) follows bearded artist Forest Hope as she interviews women on the street about female facial hair, thereby questioning standards and politics of beauty and femininity. (fe)

More information on the program and the free workshop can be found here: www.feminist-elsewheres.de. The program is funded by the Federal Capital Cultural Fund.

Films:
Les Antillais Norma Bahia Pontes F 1967 16 mm dubbed English version 16 min.
Bahia Camará Norma Bahia Pontes Brazil 1968 DCP OV/EnST 16 min.
Chants Brésiliens Norma Bahia Pontes F 1967 DCP OV/EnST 20 min.
She has a Beard Norma Bahia Pontes, Rita Moreira USA 1975 Digital file engl. OV 26 min.