Critic’s Pick:
Collaborators since 2011, Brazilian and German filmmakers Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca’s new documentary, RISE (2018), is set in the new Toronto underground extension.
Centred on the practices ofR.I.S.E. (Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere), a club founded by poet Randall Adjei that offers a supportive platform for participants to share their poems and songs, the film explores the mixed-cultural creative dialogues that result from the encounters between first and second generation Torontonians.
Most R.I.S.E. members are rooted in other cultures and languages and the duality that comes with this is often expressed in their performances. Mirroring this condition, the new underground area, linking the city centre to the suburbs, can be understood as an empowering space in which the sounds, rhythms and poetry that are expressed by performers can represent a therapeutic route towards a sense of belonging.
- Camila Belchior
For more picks from São Paulo read our Critic's Guide to the city here.