Occidente

Occidente

2015 · 15 min · ★ 6.3

In a spellbinding, textural blend of 16mm and HD video, Ana Vaz refracts the colonial history of Brazil and Portugal through objects, gestures, and contemporary customs.

Directed by Ana Vaz

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Streaming

DocAlliance Films

Rent or Buy

DocAlliance Films

Make it a double feature

1h 21m together

Both from Ana Vaz.

More from Ana VazSee all →

It Is Night in AmericaIt Is Night in America · 2024
It Is Night in America
★ 7.02024
MovieDocumentary
In Brasília, the modern capital of Brazil, an anteater is found dead by the side of a road, a boa constrictor wanders across the suburbs, and foxes prowl vacant streets. Meanwhile, in the city zoo—home to hundreds of displaced and rescued wild species—the animals look back at us humans.
The Age of StoneThe Age of Stone · 2013
The Age of Stone
★ 5.42013
MovieDocumentary
A voyage into the far west of Brazil leads us to a monumental structure - petrified at the centre of the savannah. Inspired by the epic construction of the city of Brasília, the film uses this history to imagine it otherwise. "I look at Brasília the way I look at Rome : Brasília began with a final simplification of ruins". Through the geological traces that lead us to this fictive monument, the film unearths a history of exploration, prophecy and myth.
Apiyemiyekî?Apiyemiyekî? · 2020
Apiyemiyekî?
★ 5.02020
MovieDocumentary
Apiyemiyekî? addresses the genocide of the Waimiri-Atroari people in 1970s, when during the Brazilian dictatorship indigenous lands in the mid-west were invaded for the construction of the national road BR-174 and the installation of a mining company. Illustrations about the period, created by the indigenous population, including children, reveal a traumatic history, referring us to the present day.
The TreeThe Tree · 2022
The Tree
2022
MovieDocumentary
Made for Somewhere From Here to Heaven, exhibition at Askuna Zentroa, Bilbao.
El EspejoEl Espejo · 2023
El Espejo
2023
MovieDocumentary
Sacris PulsoSacris Pulso · 2008
Sacris Pulso
2008
MovieDrama
Sacris Pulso departs from the dismemberment of another film, "Brasiliários". This film is an interpretation of Clarice Lispector's chronic "Brasília", her vision of the modernist capital, as it is the film which marks the encounter of my mother, playing Lispector, and my father, composer of the film's sound score. Through the juxtaposition of "Brasiliários" with a series of reassembled found footage, the film takes the form of a voyage of remembrance and imagination, of a past and future time dreamt between personal and collected materials, between memory and fiction.
Entre TempsEntre Temps · 2012
Entre Temps
2012
Movie
A meditation and a reverie upon a city at once real and imagined. Conceptualized as a documentary on the ZUP buildings in France, the film has instead found form as poetic & expansive confrontation with the psychogeography of a contemporary Europe in crisis. A requiem for a city dreamt between its past and present.
Fire FlowerFire Flower · 2026
Fire Flower
2026
MovieDramaDocumentary
Yoko Hayasuke's journal is set in the wake of the tsunami and nuclear disaster after the Tōhoku earthquake. Something happened yet life goes on: Tokyo continues to expand, new soil replaces irradiated land.
Amazing FantasyAmazing Fantasy · 2018
Amazing Fantasy
2018
Movie
Defying gravity, a game of levitation becomes at once the possibility of magic; or a translation of an irrepressible desire for mastery.
There Is Land!There Is Land! · 2025
There Is Land!
2025
MovieDocumentary
"Há terra! is an encounter, a hunt, a diachronic tale of looking and becoming. As in a game, as in a chase, the film errs between character and land, land and character, predator and prey."
Atomic GardenAtomic Garden · 2018
Atomic Garden
2018
Movie
Fields of newborn flowers, small gatherings of surviving bees, resistant plant species and new types of eggs lay upon our shore, engaging us to dig and search for the meaning of such unexpected life...
PSEUDOSPHYNXPSEUDOSPHYNX · 2020
PSEUDOSPHYNX
2020
MovieDocumentary
Pseudosphinx is the scientific name of the fire-caterpillars soon to become butterfies, or as they're commonly (and auspiciously) called: witches. These butterfy-witches are associated with several myths. Pseudosphinx is at the same time sphinx, meaning inhuman chtonic monstrosity that spells charades; and pseudo, as in artificial, insincere, deceptive, unreal, illusive, mimetic. Pseudosphynx keeps its meaning veiled, like a secret kept by those who save in their retinas the haptic impression of its fight. [Punto de Vista]
Dreaming In The DarkDreaming In The Dark · 2018
Dreaming In The Dark
2018
Movie
For Dreaming the Dark: hands that see, eyes that touch, Ana Vaz invited artists and filmmakers whose work trust cinema’s capacity to transform relationships between the body and the camera to propose works that will engage with both perception and embodiment. Could cinema be an art of embodiment? By what rituals and actions could vision become tactile?
Amérika: Bahia de las FlechasAmérika: Bahia de las Flechas · 2016
Amérika: Bahia de las Flechas
2016
Movie
It is said that in the year of 1492, the first European ship led by Christopher Columbus, disembarked on the coast of Samaná, present-day Dominican Republic, and was received by a rain of arrows carefully plotted by the Caribbean Taíno. Presently, a saline lake named after the Taíno chief Enriquillo witnesses profound eco-systemic changes leading to species migration, forced evacuation and an expanding choral desert revealing the lake’s geologic past. Taking the camera itself as an arrow, a foreign body, Amérika: Bay of Arrows looks for ways in which to animate, to awaken, to make vibrate again this gesture in the present - arrows against a perpetual “falling sky”.
Les Mains, NégativesLes Mains, Négatives · 2012
Les Mains, Négatives
2012
Movie
A postcard, Saint-Ouen flea markets.
A Film, ReclaimedA Film, Reclaimed · 2015
A Film, Reclaimed
2015
Movie
The ecologic crisis is a political, economic and social crisis. It is also cinematographic, as cinema coincides historically and in a critical and descriptive way with the development of the Anthropocene. A Film, Reclaimed is a conversation, an essay that reads the terrestrial crisis under the influence and with the help of the beautiful and terrible films which have accompanied it.

More Like This

Antonia's LineAntonia's Line · 1995
Antonia's Line
★ 6.91995
MovieDramaComedy
After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
Whale RiderWhale Rider · 2003
Whale Rider
★ 7.02003
MovieDramaFamily
A contemporary story of love, rejection, and triumph as a young Māori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.
Point BreakPoint Break · 1991
Point Break
★ 7.11991
MovieActionThriller
In Los Angeles, a gang of bank robbers who call themselves The Ex-Presidents commit their crimes while wearing masks of Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Johnson. Believing that the members of the gang could be surfers, the F.B.I. sends young agent Johnny Utah to the beach undercover to mix with the surfers and gather information.
HelenHelen · 2009
Helen
★ 6.52009
MovieDrama
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
Jesus CampJesus Camp · 2006
Jesus Camp
★ 7.02006
MovieDocumentary
A documentary on kids who attend a summer camp hoping to become the next Billy Graham.
In My SkinIn My Skin · 2002
In My Skin
★ 6.02002
MovieDramaHorror
After a disfiguring leg injury, a young woman develops an unsettling secret relationship with her own body in which pain is pleasure, mutilation is love and hungers of the flesh have a mind of their own.
The SecretThe Secret · 2000
The Secret
★ 7.32000
MovieRomanceDrama
Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter