WexCast: Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca

Through the end of July, The Box, our standing spot for video presentation, features a recent work by the filmmaking team of Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, creators of a handful of films including 2015's Faz que vai/Set to Go and 2017's Estás vendo coisas/You Are Seeing Things. Terremoto santo, or Holy Tremor, presents a series of impassioned performances of Christian music by young evangelicals from northeast Brazil, mostly in settings that are removed from the confines of a church.

Film/Video Studio Program Curator Jennifer Lange became familiar with the pair's work during a trip to the 2016 Bienal de São Paulo after seeing photographs by Bárbara on an earlier research trip for the exhibition Cruzamentos. A chance to see Terremoto santo and meet the artists in person came in fall 2017 when Jennifer went back to Brazil as a juror for Videobrasil. She not only secured the film for showing here, she arranged a residency for them to complete their most recent work, RISE, which recently debuted in Cleveland as part of Front Triennial. Here's the page with info on when you can see their new film at the event.

For this WexCast, Bárbara and Benjamin spoke with Jennifer on July 9, 2018, as their residency here was coming to a close. The discussion covers their shared history, the presence of music in their films, the young evangelicals they collaborated with for Terremoto santo, and the Toronto suburb that’s the focus of their new film for Front.