GILBERTO GIL SERÁ ESTRELA DE FILME SOBRE A CONEXÃO SUL

GILBERTO GIL E AS RAÍZES SUL-SUL

 

 

Por Luis Turiba

O cantor, pensador, filósofo e ex-ministro da Cultura do governo Lula, Gilberto Gil, será protagonista do documentário "Connecting South, The New World" – Conectando o Sul, o novo mundo segundo Gilberto Gil-, um filme totalmente dedicado a ele que começa a ser gravado nesse carnaval em Salvador, pelos cinegrafistas Pierre-Yves Borgeaud e Emmanuel Gétaz, um suíço, outro francês; com produção brasileira de Daniel Rodriguez.  

No filme, Gil viajará pela conexão política-geográfica que começa a unir ainda fragilmente países e povos do eixo sul do planeta, expondo, discutindo e refletindo suas experiências existenciais, musicais, poéticas, políticas e filosóficas com gente da mesma raiz sulista.

Depois de Salvador, o filho de Gandhi autor de "Babá Alapalá" visitará terreiros de candomblé e afoxés carnavalescos, irá à África do Sul, onde tem encontros marcados com artista e pensadores locais, entre os quais o Bispo Desmond Tutu.  

De lá, segue para a Austrália onde se encontrará com poetas como Roberta Sykes e Peter Garrets, além de líderes e cantores aborígenes australianos. Explica-se: os aborígenes australianos descendem, provavelmente, de emigrantes africanos que, há cerca de cinquenta mil anos, cruzaram o mar, usando canoas e toscas embarcações. Nessa época, a Austrália era ligada à Nova Guiné e era muito mais verde e menos desértica do que hoje.

Segundo o jornal baiano Correio, o cineasta suiço Pierre-Yves, hoje com 46 anos, lembra bem quando ouviu Gilberto Gil cantar no Festival de Montreux, em Genebra, o canção "Baba Alapalá" com os versos: "O filho perguntou pro pai/ onde é que está tataravô/ Tataravô, bisavô, avô/ Pai Xangô, Aganju/ Viva egum. Babá Alapalá". Agora, esses versos fazem total sentido para ele:

"É fantástico como Gil fala da ancestralidade de uma forma tão simples e criativa", declarou o cineasta ao jornal.

Pierre-Yves e Emmanuel Gétaz são autores do documentário "Retorno de Gorré" sobre o cantor e compositor senegales Youssou N´Dour, produção franco-suiça, distribuído e vendido em todo o mundo.

AMAZONIA

A volta de Gil ao Brasil será pelo Alto Amazonas, onde visitará tribos yanomanis e de outras etnias localizadas nas imediações da cidade de São Gabriel da Cachoeira, próxima a fronteira com a Venezuela.

PARABOLICAMARÁ

Tudo é muito simbólico, cheio de significados. Com os indígenas da Amazônia, Gil participará de encontros no mais distante Ponto de Cultura criado pelo Ministério da Cultura, a maloca Casa do Conhecimento.

Uma antena parabólica será levada até a região de Itacotiara-Mirim, onde ele deverá fazer um show com transmissão via lep-top para as principais cidades do mundo.     

SYNOPSIS

Connecting South is the first cinema documentary film dedicated to Gilberto Gil, one of the

greatest cultural icons of Brazil and the Southern Hemisphere.

Throughout a musical journey in Brazil, South Africa and Australia, Connecting South will

address quintessential questions of cultural identity and relationships among peoples.

the new world according to Gilberto Gil

In a small Amazonian town situated on the shore of Rio Negro, the singer Gilberto Gil performs a

concert-manifesto. On this occasion, the Brazilian music legend, former minister of culture,

presents in songs his vision of a more equal world, where diversity, mixed and multi-cultures

deflect racial discrimination and where new means of expression are readily accessible to all.

This acts as a trigger to form a new intercultural world. Members of the local indigenous

population come to watch the concert, gathering in this remote Amazonian music venue,

meanwhile many others share the moment across the globe via a live web transmission set up

by the village inhabitants.

This concert is the outcome of a journey across the Southern hemisphere, the stages of which

are unveiled throughout the film in songs. It first starts in Bahia, Gilberto Gil's birthplace, where

he proudly claims his black descent while celebrating the value of racial diversity, alongside the

Filhos de Gandhy. We discover the fights he led, as the minister of culture, to democratize new

technologies. In his view, they prolong past struggles for equality and have become new

territories of expression, where the previously excluded, the peoples on the fringes, could finally

gain a voice. Gilberto Gil wants to confront this vision, which he calls the Brazilian option, to that

which people experience in other Southern countries facing racism and problems of identity.

In Johannesburg, Gilberto Gil works in a township with a choir and the MIAGI youth orchestra

where "black", "white" and "coloured" South Africans get along and connect through the

universal language of music. With them, he seeks the best way to merge musical genres, using

his personal compositions. He discovers the uncertainties of daily life for young musicians and

the challenges of reconciliation in today's South Africa. Gilberto Gil discusses the future of South

Africa with renowned artists, who fought against apartheid. He also meets people who profess a

dedication to the promotion of open source and free sharing of technological information, a

condition for the development of local cultures in Gilberto's Gil vision.

Gilberto Gil then reaches Australia where he meets Peter Garrett, current Minister for the

protection of Environment, Heritage and the Arts and former singer of the rock group Midnight

Oil. One of his most famous song Beds are burning, denouncing the long-lasting sufferings

imposed on Aborigines, has been an international success. Together, they discuss the strength

of artistic creation, which sometimes better than politics, makes people come together. Gil also

meets Aborigines in order to better grasp their unsolved situation: he plays with a young hip

hoper and a singer from the "Stolen Generations", both in search of their own past. In the vast

and dry Northern territories, he meets Yolngu Aboriginal people who, through the Mulka project,

learn to take the reigns of modern media to put their past and present stories into images.

Gilberto Gil comes back to Brazil, in the heart of Amazonia, where he also finds threatened

cultures. He encounters Indigenous people who are fighting for the survival of their forgotten

traditions while learning how to use modern technologies. It is from a Pontos de Cultura, a

Brazilian program offering web access, digital kits and open source software, that Gil is able to

broadcast his concert-manifesto and express his hopes, as well as his doubts, for future

generations.