the father of brazilian black cinema
Rio de Janeiro, 1966. A military dictatorship took over the country, just 78 years after the abolition of slavery. A black child goes to the theater for the first time and watches an, also black, actor, shine on stage. Vantoen Pereira Jr watches his uncle Zózimo Bulbul in the play “Memórias de um Sargento de Milícias” (“Memoirs of a Police Sergeant”) alongside a mainly black cast. Almost 50 years after, in 2013, while on his would-be death bed, Zózimo asks Vantoen to take his picture. It is at that moment that his nephew realizes that he needs to tell his uncle’s story: how Zózimo Bulbul - born Jorge da Silva - forged his artistic path, being the first black main character in a Brazilian novela and becoming known as the “father of Brazilian black cinema”.
Zózimo lived during several critical moments in Brazil’s history. The military dictatorship, political persecution, exile, but also artistic movements like Cinema Novo and Bossa Nova. Zózimo had an active role in these, sometimes as the only black person. He was in a novela as the main love interest in an interracial couple - something so revolutionary that it got censored -, was a high fashion model in a time when black beauty was not recognized, acted in staple movies of the Cinema Novo movement, and dared to direct his own movies, even if it meant using discarded film materials.
