Director Luiza Botelho screened her short film BELA LX-404 at the Panorama Internacional Coisa de Cinema on April 9th, at beloved movie theatre Cine Glauber Rocha at the center of Salvador da Bahia.
She first premiered BELA LX-404 at the Rio International Film Festival in October 2024.
Botelho is an award-winning filmmaker and director born in Brazil. After graduating from the University of Arizona in 2011, she lived and worked in both Los Angeles and New York City for several years. During this time, she built an impressive resume—working for TED and BBC as well as producing acclaimed projects such as documentary Meu Amigo Fela (My Friend Fela) and music video Kel Dia for Cape Verdean singer Zubikilla Spencer. She got her start in filmmaking with her father, acclaimed director Joel Zito Araújo.
“I grew up on set. We couldn’t really afford a babysitter.” She tells me over a video call. She explains that although her father was deeply involved in the filmmaking scene, she “built a career outside of that,” staking a claim for herself in the industry.
BELA LX-404 tells an afro-futuristic story about a lonely man who buys a robot online to act as his wife. Thinking he’ll receive a young, cute, cyberpunk robot, he instead gets an older robot (played by the late Léa Garcia) named BELA LX-404. Botelho says she wrote the script for the film in one day, after the storyline came to her in a dream.
The theme of afro-futurism in BELA LX-404 speaks to many people in Salvador.
“When we think of sci-fi we think of white people,” Botelho explains. “[Afro-futurism] helps us place afro-descendents in the future. To reinvent and reimagine what the future can be for the Afro-Diaspora.”
Salvador has a painful history of slavery and discrimination. As the first port for Portuguese settlers, Bahia imported more than one million enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. Today, this history is still remembered and contested through poetry, art, dance, and other cultural expressions.
Afro-futurism allows Bahians to envision a future in which the lives of Afro-descendants are brighter and more expansive than this traumatic past.
Léa Garcia played an important role in this idea as well.
Garcia, along with household name Ruth de Souza, was among the first Black women actors to rise to prominence in Brazil. Garcia’s film debut was the Brazilian-French co-production Black Orpheus, which took home the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 1960.
Black Orpheus was the first Brazilian film to win an Oscar. However, because it was produced by French director Marcel Camus, it was officially registered as a French picture. Despite being largely shot in Rio de Janeiro, depicting aspects of the city’s carnival culture, and having a primarily Brazilian cast and crew, Botelho explains how the country of Brazil did not want the film to be recognized as a Brazilian picture.
Further, film projects have historically underrepresented and misrepresented Black actors in Brazil since the conception of cinema. Although Brazil has the largest population of African descendants outside of Africa, the industry has a long history of being dominated by elite whites. When Black characters first appeared in films, they were nearly invariably portrayed in servile or criminal roles. Black actors didn’t start to take over the screen more frequently and ethically until the 1930s, when “chanchadas,” a type of Rio-based musical with themes of carnaval, became popular. Chanchadas had an impact on Black Orpheus, but the movie also had its own unique take using the influences of Greek mythology and neorealism.
In response to the question of whether she believes that collaborating with Garcia on this project reinforces the concept of Black cinema is here to stay in Brazil, she states that more work needs to be done.
“Black Brazilian film has been around for years. My film is just a drop in a big ocean.” Botelho says. She makes reference to the ongoing effort of being socially cognizant and anti-racist in our creative roles: “We always have to be aware, it can’t last.”
Garcia passed away in 2023 at the age of 90 due to heart complications. She leaves a lasting impression as a trailblazer for other young creatives in Brazil.
As festivals continue showing BELA LX-404, it’s uncertain when the film will be made public. Botelho’s next project is currently in development.
Sources:
https://panorama.coisadecinema.com.br/filmes/bela-lx-404/
https://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0129
Stam, Robert. “Slow Fade to Afro: The Black Presence in Brazilian Cinema.” Film Quarterly 36, no. 2 (1982): 16–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/3696991
https://goldenglobes.com/articles/black-cinema-brazil-long-and-hard-road/