Heitor Augusto

Based in São Paulo, Brazil, Heitor Augusto works as an independent programmer, film critic, lecturer and translator. He programed Black Brazilian Cinema: Episodes of a Fragmented History, a retrospective hosted at Belo Horizonte International Short Film Festival and focused on short films spanning the period from 1973 to 2017. The retrospective was also accompanied by a 374-page catalogue, the most comprehensive effort yet to investigate the presence of Black directors. He has also programmed for other festivals, retrospectives and film clubs. He’s the head programmer for NICHO 54, an institute, of which he is a co-founder, working for the promotion of film education to Black Brazilians, as well as pushing for racial equity in the industry. Through this his work has helped to uncover systemic invisibilities perpetuated by traditional approaches to film history, providing healing to historically shattered subjectivities, as well as being an integral part of forging his own identity. Since 2015 Augusto has been mapping the presence of Black Brazilians in film history and such material will constitute an innovative research to be published in 2021. In constant exchange with the African Diaspora, his current curatorial research focuses on experimental films and queer cinema directed by Black filmmakers, with a special interest in bridging Brazilian with American expressions. In American film, his main object as a researcher is Blaxploitation cinema, with which he’s engaged from a formal, aesthetics, historical, racial and political perspective.