Abolition in Brazil: Série em Fuga with Patrícia Freitas

@ Join us for a screening of three short films by Patrícia Freitas, followed by a conversation. Fleeing Firminas features moments of women in incarceration participating in the creative writing workshops of the Corpos Indóceis, Mentes Livres Project, coordinated by Professor Denise Carrascosa.

Fleeing Roquelina follows writer Dona Roquelina’s release from prison. And Rioters is a feature-length documentary currently in production.

Filming began in 2024 on the occasion of the launch, at the Lemos de Brito Penitentiary in Salvador, of the books Firminas em Fuga , a collection of poems written by participants in the literary workshops, and Abolition. Feminism.

Now . by Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R.

Meiners and Beth E. Richie.

Rioters tells the stories of Black women from the post-abolition era in old Bahia to the present day; women who dared and continue to dare to occupy spaces that, though still hostile to them today, allow their art, knowledge, and ancestral power to resonate. Patrícia Freitas , documentary filmmaker, holds a master’s degree in literature and culture from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), and is an associate researcher at PAVIC—Researchers in Audiovisual Media, Iconography, and Content.

In over two decades of work, she has directed documentaries such as Ira (2004) on religious racism, which received an honorable mention at Cinesul (2005) and the Ibero-American Film and Video Festival (2005) and was screened at the Ethnographic Film Festival (2005), Negros em Movimento (2005), about Black theater in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro; and Enquanto te espero, a luz coalhou (2018), a poetic documentary screened at the Arqfilm Festival in Santiago, Chile, and Puebla, Mexico, among others. In recent years, she has worked as an assistant director on the series Enredos da liberdade (dir.

Luis Carlos de Alencar), currently streaming on Globoplay, and as a researcher for the series Histórias submersas (dir. Paulo Alcântara) and Todos os sonhos (dir.

Sofia Federico), both aired on TVE Bahia, among others. She also served as an assistant to Joel Zito Araújo and Hermano Penna, leading figures in Brazilian cinema.

She has taught at public and private educational institutions, such as the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia (UFRB), where she served as a substitute instructor in 2019 at the Center for Health Sciences. Since 2013, she has been part of the “Corpos Indóceis, Mentes Livres” initiative, leading creative writing workshops with women incarcerated at the Lemos de Brito Prison Complex in Salvador, a project coordinated by Professor Denise Carrascosa, Ph.D. (UFBA).

Denise Carrascosa is a writer, lawyer, and full professor of literature at the Federal University of Bahia, in Brasil. She holds a Ph.D. in Theory and Criticism of Literature and Culture (UFBA) and completed postdoctoral studies in the History of Slavery in Brasil (UFRB).

In 2010, she launched the abolitionist project Indocile Bodies and Free Minds: an art-education program for literary writing at the Women’s Prison Complex in Bahia, where she established, together with sentenced women inmates, the Free Minds Library (2012), enabling Sisters inside to access sentence remission through reading. Carrascosa wrote Técnicas e Políticas de si nas margens: literatura e prisão no Brasil pós-Carandiru (Appris, 2015); and edited Firminas em Fuga (Ed.

Ogum’s, 2023), a poetry anthology by incarcerated women. As a guest author at FLIP 2023, she launched the abolitionist play O Pacto de Bocapiu: a cumplicidade silenciosa do femiNegricídio de Estado nas prisões (Ed.

Ogum’s, 2023). At the 2024 Bahia Book Biennial, she launched her book of literary criticism essays from the past two decades, Corpo de Vento: Exu da Teoria – Travessias Crítico-Performativas pelas Artes Negras (EDUFBA, 2024).

In 2024, she received the Esperança Garcia Award for her work in combating violence against women and was a finalist for the 66th Jabuti Award in the Reading Promotion Category. In 2025, she launched Bocapiu: the Hush Pact—the silent complicity of the State’s Blackfeminicide in prisons (Ogum’s Toques Press), translated by Jess Oliveira and Bruna Barros, at New York University and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

In collaboration with Beatriz Carrascosa França, she edited the anthology Se Anastácia Falasse (Ogum’s Toques Negros, 2025) – a collection of short stories, testimonies, and chronicles by incarcerated women in Brasil. Add to calendar Google Calendar iCalendar Outlook 365 Outlook Live