Dry Ground Burning / Film School Radio interview with Co-director(s) Joana Pimenta (Aderley Queiros)

DRY GROUND BURNING follows a fearsome outlaw Chitara in Sol Nascente, Brazil, who leads an all-female gang that siphons and steals precious oil from the authoritarian, militarized government. Just released from prison, Léa (Léa Alves Silva) returns home to the Brasilia favela of Sol Nascente and joins up with her half-sister Chitara (Joana Darc Furtado), the fearless leader of an all-female gang that steals and refines oil from underground pipes and sells gasoline to a clandestine network of motorcyclists. Living in constant opposition to Jair Bolsonaro’s fiercely authoritarian and militarized government, Chitara’s women claim the streets for themselves as a declaration of radical political resistance on behalf of ex-cons and the oppressed. Inventing its’ own cinematic language as it oscillates between a hard-edged documentary realism and dramatized explosive fantasy, DRY GROUND BURNING reunites filmmakers Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós (Once There Was Brasilia) presenting their unique vision of a post-apocalyptic afro-feminist matriarchal future. Co-director, co-writer and cinematographer Joana Pimenta joins us for a conversation on the film’s complicated shooting schedule, working with a blend of professional and non-professional actors, casting two sisters in the lead roles, working in Brazil as the country began to move away from the authoritarianism of Bolsonaro toward a more democratic future and her role as the Director of Film Study Center at Harvard University. For more go to: grasshopperfilm.com/dry-ground-burning