Mariana Luiza is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work addresses issues of identity and belonging. She is the creator of the Linha de Cor project and the exhibition Constituinte do Brasil Possível. She holds a degree in Screenwriting from the New York Film Academy (2008, NYC) and in Editing from the Darcy Ribeiro Film School (2018, Brazil). Mariana is a member of APAN, the Association of Black Audiovisual Professionals (Brazil), and AAWIC, African American Women in Cinema (USA).
Is it possible to redeem a nation that once sought to exterminate the majority of its people?
In 1911, Brasil presented an audacious plan at the First Universal Congress of Races in London: to become a predominantly white nation within a century, exterminating Black and mestizo people within three generations, and transforming into a fully white country by 2012. The painting Ham’s Redemption (1895), by Modesto Brocos, exhibited during the congress, symbolized Brazil’s racial whitening ideology.
Over 110 years later, Redemption critically examines Brazil’s whitening policy, providing a counter-colonial response. The film, presented in three acts, revisits this history through archival imagery and symbolism, exposing the lasting impact of eugenicist ideologies. At its core, it challenges the narrative of Ham’s Redemption, replacing the imposed vision of racial erasure with one that honors ancestral knowledge and the resilience of Black and Indigenous communities.
Redemption will play as part of the Shorts Block: Your Hands Were Built from Memory
