Marcel Cordeiro’s brisk documentary darts all over Brazil, exploring ideas about religion and diversity. The film suggests that the pragmatic approach to faith exemplified by its subjects, who are happy to mix and match elements of different religions, or shift between them, might be a useful model for the world at large, riven as it is by sectarian and ethnic conflict.

Cordeiro’s film doubles as a celebration of Brazil’s ethnic and cultural diversity, as we hear testimony from artists, musicians, priests, drag queens and even regular families, each representing a different, and often hybridized, spiritual outlook. Catholics morph into Mormans; Pentecostalists swing with Spiritualists; Catholics co-habit with Satanists. It’s all a crazy stew, spiced up with plenty of music and dance, but the common factor is the ease with which everybody seems to accommodate everybody else’s religious diversity.

Although Cordeiro is keen to show us how such diversity operates as a positive force in Brazilian society, he’s not blind to the exploitative side of organised religion or afraid to highlight the stark contrast between extraordinarily wealthy churches and their incredibly impoverished clientele. All in all, this makes for a lively, thought-provoking exploration of an unwieldy and challenging subject. – Andrew Langridge

Director/Photography: Marcel Cordeiro
Screenplay: Marcel Cordiero, Gui Castor
Editor: Davide Azzigana
Music: Jefinho Faraó

67 mins, DV

In Portuguese, with English subtitles

Canterbury Film Society
Monday 11 June, 6.30pm