Dry Ground Burning

Director: Joana Pimenta, Adirley Queirós

2022 / 153min / DCP

In the Bolsonaro-era Brasilia of this incendiary docufiction—the second collaboration between directors Queirós and Pimenta—an all-female gang led by Joana Darc Furtado and ex-con half-sister Léa Alves Silva practice their own outside-the-law form of political resistance, stealing and refining oil from underground pipes before selling it on to bikers. The melding of documentary style with elements of science-fiction and the Western yields an indelible vision of both contemporary dystopia and inspired, indefatigable defiance on the part of society’s castoffs and outsiders. Selected by Alice Diop as part of her carte blanche, furthering her creative dream of an “ideal cinematheque of the outskirts of the world. “An astonishing work of survival and resilience… packs a pulpy punch, yet is also rooted in an urgent political reality.” —The Guardian

Introduction by director Alice Diop on Sunday, November 17th