By Vagner de Almeida *
Sexuality and Hate Crimes is a documentary and the first alternative film produced by Director Vagner de Almeida and Richard Parker. Previous films directed by Vagner de Almeida and produced by ABIA, the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association, include “Cabaret Prevenção” (Prevention Cabaret), “Ritos e Ditos de Jovens Gays” (Rites and Words of Gay Youths), “Borboletas da Vida” (The Butterflies), “Basta Um Dia” (Living Day by Day), “Homofobia na Escola (Homophobia in Schools).
Almeida’s most recent documentary, Sexuality and Hate Crimes, seeks to protest the brutalities committed against homosexuals in Brazil in the name of our departed and those of us affected by the violence and discrimination towards homosexuals.
Since the beginning of this series of films about metropolitan Rio de Janeiro, various protagonists from the films have been barbarically murdered. The people who committed these murders are free and are assassinating others in the Brazilian homosexual communities with impunity.
Hate crimes come from different segments of society.
Because the Catholic Church and the radical evangelical groups actively denounce the civil rights of non-heterosexuals, each are partially responsible for the rising intolerance.
In a society dominated by macho, religious, and moralist values against LGBTT communities, this represents a negotiation in truncated and badly resolved mores, akin to a mirror with distorted images reflecting a denigrating image of our society.
In the early months of 2008 in Brazil, 50 homicides against gays were registered. It has been a year of homophobic violence. It is worrisome because these numbers only represent the registered crimes and do not reflect the real frequency of murders. Many are not registered officially in police stations or in hospitals, as many of the afflicted are unrecognizable after death and mutilation.
People are assassinated merely for being gay, lesbian, and transsexual simply because they do not fit into what society idealizes as people with dignity in accordance with their understanding of moral rules and good customs.
Enough with this intolerance!
Our friends die because a lack of civic space. When we simply omit ourselves in the face of barbarism, we too become a part of this lack of civilization. Because we forget history, we are predestined to repeat it as has happened in the past.
Sexuality and Hate Crimes is dedicated to those who were brutally assassinated in Brazil and worldwide. The official opening will be on October 20th at the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Duration: 27 minutes
Color NTSC
Subtitles in English
More information at Vagner Almeida’s website
* Vagner Almeida is from SPW – Columbia Secretariat Team, writter and a movies director
:: Posted in 09/23/2008 ::