Our bodies are highly porous entities. We can think of them as open, enmeshed with the world. Or we can think of them as closed. In Bahia, men cultivate a body that is closed: a fortress capable to shut out the omnipresent forces of evil. Yet in spite of such efforts, Bahian men know fully well that the best things in life require their bodies to be wide open.
Mattijs van de Port
Mattijs van de Port is a visual anthropologist at the University of Amsterdam. In his films, all of them shot in Brazil, he keeps returning to realms of transgression – ecstatic religion, violence, eroticism and aesthetics – where humans face the fact that the world does not necessarily comply with their narrations of it. His filmwork includes Saborear Frutas Brasileiras (2013), about the joy of eating fruits and the essay films The Possibility of Spirits (2016); Knots and Holes (2018); The Body Won’t Close (2021). Where Can I Get Lost? will have its European premiere in the 2024 Ethnofest. Van de Port’s films won several awards and prizes, including the prestigious Basil Wright Film Prize in 2021 and the Excellence in Visual Anthropology Award in that same year.