When Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, slashed public funding for the arts earlier this year, the director of the country’s top film festival knew her event was in trouble.
“What the government is doing is strangling Brazilian cinema,” said Eduardo Valente, a film director and critic.
“What’s going on is going to destroy the independent film industry that was built with funding from Ancine,” he said.
“I was left with nothing,” said Paulino, whose film deals with “blackness and queerness” and was produced last year with public funding.