Urban dance and surfing Angola to Brazil: M. Patrocinio

Countries once forced together by colonialism and the slave trade, now find connections in cultural entrepreneurship and the Portuguese language. Small independent film-makers have a role in promoting African and Brazilian culture for their contemporary value, not as tourist cliches. Mario Patrocinio and his brother Pedro's first film was Complexo do Alemao, a documentary about life inside a favela in Rio de Janeiro. Its hallmark was to show the lives of people living there, in their own terms in a place that is often reduced by the media to a drug-ridden ghetto and nothing else.

Their second film I Love Kuduro, was filmed in the Angolan capital Luanda, and continues this approach of rejecting stereotypes. Since its premiere at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, in Brazil, I Love Kuduro has been shown at the Festval Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara (Mexico), the most prestigious film festival in Latin America, and HotDocs International Documentary Festival (Canada), the biggest documentary festival in North America. It won the award for Best Cinematography in a Documentary at Cineport - the Portuguese Film Festival in Brazil, and has been seen in Kenya, the US, Spain, Germany, UK, South Africa, Cape Verde and, of course, Angola and Portugal.

As director Mario Patrocinio says: 'The general public was unaware of the kuduro phenomenon and its importance in Angola. The power and reach of the movement were surprising.'

Since making Kuduro he has become interested in surfing as another cultural phenomenon which is popular in several continents. He talked to The Prisma about his belief in the power of culture to bring people together.

This was first published in The Prisma Multicultural Newspaper on January 12th 2015 and the full text with photos can be found here:

https://theprisma.co.uk/2015/01/12/urban-dance-and-surfing-angola-to-brazil/