An interview with the documentary filmmaker and BKC fellow Leonard Cortana about his film, “Marielle’s Legacy Will Not Die.”
“If you look at it closely, the Brazilian carnival has always been an important event for political activism. Global media, however, often undermine this political commitment and rather insist on the indulgent excesses of the celebration. When the Mangueira samba group decided to pay tribute to Marielle for the 2019 carnival competition, they reframed her murder as another attempt to erase an important Afro-Brazilian figure from national history. They used the stage of the carnival to celebrate her as an important figure. They won the competition, and their victory was a cry against the silence of the government and the slowness of its investigation into the crime.”