Reel Brazil: Mutinies in video art
27 June – 30 November 2025
REEL BRAZIL explores creative resistance and aesthetic experimentations in radical video art and experimental cinema, drawing cultural parallels between Brazil’s post-dictatorship era and the UK’s Thatcher years – featuring an extensive collection of works from Associação Cultural Videobrasil’s Historical Collection with highlights of new moving images works on the deceased artist/rights-activist, Keith Armstrong (part of the NDMAC Archive) from the UK.
REEL BRAZIL’s 5 seasonal programmes will be screened across multiple venues in Folkestone and online, featuring over 25 historic and contemporary works in video art, experimental cinema, and digital commissions by over 27 international artists.
O Samba do Crioulo Doido
Samba of the Crazy Creole
O Samba do Crioulo Doido explores the eroticised black body and racial identities in Brazil, through the performance by Luiz de Abreu.
The title references a satirical song by Stanislaw Ponte Preta and deconstructs cliches of Brazilian cultures that symbolise Black Brazilian identities: samba, the carnival, and exoticised and eroticised body – reducing the black bodies as objectified spectacles for the ‘white’ gaze.
Preto e Branco
Black and White
Carlos Nader | 1hr 13min | 2004 | Brazil | Documentary
The documentary seeks to shed light on issues related to racial prejudice in Brazil through four stories of citizens and families from different strata of society who, in one way or another, are related to the subject. Is the country a racial democracy? Or is it a country that is racist only in the economic sector?
Ipê Amarelo
Yellow Ipê Tree
Naza Nazareth’s long journeys on foot explore borders and the global slave trade. The Yellow Ipê (golden trumpet tree) is a tree native to Brazil, a national symbol, recognised for its exuberant yellow blossoms. In Ipê Amarelo, the artist repeats the act of circling the Tree of Oblivion several times. The performative gesture, a poetic attempt at rewinding history.
Talk About Body
The video creates a strange scenario in which the artist, dressed in a hijab as a Muslim woman. Facing a group of adults, she delivers a dead pan monologue which analyses her own body in detail and objectively as if a piece of specimen – such as her body structure, physiognomy characteristics and blood lineage, racial and regional typology.
JOURNAL
A CATALOGUE OF IDEAS
In 2025, Gabriela Golder’s ‘Conversation Piece’ has an urgent message
HOW I DESIGNED THE DAM IN VENICE - #1
Vase 花瓶: Unseen and Unspeakable Existence...
Moving images by nina shen
TWF
This Week in Folkestone
Mini Doc #3
open calls
We will release new OPEN CALL Opportunities for ‘REEL BRAZIL’
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WE ARE RECRUITING BOARD MEMBERS
CT20 IS LOOKING FOR NEW BOARD MEMBERS TO JOIN OUR OVERSIGHT AND ADVISORY BOARD (Non-Executive)
CT20 Projects is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation and we are looking to grow our new non-executive Oversight & Advisory Board by appointing a new permanent CHAIR as well as general BOARD members, who can play a key role in our organisation’s governance.
We are looking for people from all backgrounds who are passionate about the arts and its potential to change people’s lives to join our board. You will be instrumental in the development of our ambition, vision and policies and play an active role in shaping the future development of this ambitious and dynamic organisation.
The board convenes 4 times a year and this voluntary advisory role will probably take up to half a day of your time (max), once every 3 months, but you will be learning about the UK arts industry and be on an exciting journey with us!
Please get in touch with CT20’s director, Nina Shen for more information & a non-obligatory chat: info@ct-20.org.
Interested to apply? Please see the Application Pack here.
Deadline: 31 October 2025