São Paulo – An account of the past contrasts with contemporary footage in the documentary that’ll be screened at the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah, Palestine. The short film mixes pictures and an account of the time Brazilian emperor Dom Pedro II visited the Arab country and footage depicting how the same sites are now. The screening of the film on Palestinian soil will be on June 12 and also feature a photo exhibition on the trip of the Brazilian monarch. Pictured above, a still of the movie.
The event is organized by the Representative Office of Brazil in Ramallah. “The pictures [featured in the video] are from Dom Pedro II’s notebook and date back from the 1870s. The voiceover we used in the documentary was a voice talent reading his notebook as if it was the emperor himself speaking and showing the places he went through and how they’re now,” ambassador Alessandro Candeas, the head of the Representative Office of Brazil in Ramallah, told ANBA.
The emperor went from North to South of the region known as the Holy Land. “He visited sites of Bible passages. He went on a pilgrimage, too. We took the old picture and the current image of how the place is now, and we superposed them. The idea is making this diachronic dialogue between times,” said Candeas.
The voiceover of the video is in Portuguese with English subtitles. The premiere of the film was part of the celebrations of the Bicentennial of the Independence of Brazil celebrated last year. The documentary premiered on December 2, 2022, in Jerusalem at the inn Dom Pedro stayed at the time.
Now, on June 12 the screening in Ramallah aims to give access to Palestinian authorities and Brazilians living in the country that couldn’t watch the film. So the venue chosen was the museum in tribute of a leading Palestinian artist. “Dom Pedro II was a scholar. As a humanist, he was interested in the local culture and contrast. And the Mahmoud Darwish Museum celebrates the most relevant poet of Palestine. He’s wonderful, wrote wonderful books, and his sensitive way of presenting the reality of the Palestinian people is extraordinary,” the ambassador pointed out.
The event will be divided into the screening of the video and the exhibition of photos of the trip of Dom Pedro II through the Middle East, which will be scaled in another room of the museum. The event will be open and free of charge.
The trip
The initiative wants to highlight the historical relation between the two nations. “Few people know that Dom Pedro II was in Palestine. One of the goals is showing he went on a pilgrimage and recorded it. This trip was followed by a large increase in the immigration of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians to Brazil, the diplomat pointed out.
The trip, said Candeas, influenced the current ties between Brazil and Palestine. “Back then, many migrants left Bethlehem (Palestine) for the Northeast of Brazil. Now this Brazilian community living in Palestine descends from those who had migrated from Brazil and are coming back. Now we have a new community of Brazilians born in Palestine,” he pointed out.
Quick facts
The visit of Brazilian emperor Dom Pedro II to the Holy Land
June 12, at 5 pm
Mahmoud Darwish Museum, in Ramallah, Palestine
Find out more: er.brasil@itamaraty.gov.br
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
