Representations of a Forgotten Past Childhood in Political Exile in Flávia Castro’s Movies

Abstract

It is known that exiles have a constant need to reconstruct their identity (Said 2003) and, at times, they have the task of deconstructing and reorganizing narratives that cultivate memory. Memory, therefore, is configured as an interpretation of the past and, thus, as a process of reconstructing this past from the present and through language(s). Starting from the concept of post-memorial generation by Hirsch (2012), this article aims to analyse film narratives of Diário de uma busca (2010) and Deslembro (2018), highlighting the transmutability between fiction and reality and alluding to memory and history. To do so, I use the concepts of translation as a meaning of recreation, representation and reproduction of memories along with the theoretical approaches that refers to cultural adaptation and intersemiotic translation. In short, this research work observes the similarities and differences in the construction of these films narratives and discuss the way that the director, Flávia Castro, translates her memories of the Brazilian dictatorship and political exile in different film formats, namely, in a documentary and in a fiction.