O Queer ancestral?Super-8, ativismo e imagens da sexualidade no curta-metragem Baltazar da Lomba (1982)

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the short film Baltazar da Lomba (1982), produced by the gay activist group Nós Também, within the context of the Super-8 cycle in Paraiba’s cinema. The work adapts a 16th-century inquisitorial case of punishment for sodomy and repositions the historical character through a distinctive aesthetic, articulating sexuality, audiovisual language, and memory. Based on the category of sexual dissidence, the study understands the film as an early manifestation of artistic practices engaged in subverting heteronormativity, amid the conservatism and repression of the military dictatorship. Drawing on theoretical contributions from queer studies and film image studies, the analysis addresses the film’s technical and cultural aspects, its reception, as well as the narrative and performative strategies that situate it within the genealogy of what is known as queer cinema in Brazil. The methodology includes film analysis, examination of interviews with individuals involved in the Paraiban cinematic scene of the period, a survey of printed sources, and a review of the historiography produced on the subject. In this way, the study seeks to contribute to the expansion of historical and spatial frameworks in the historiography of sexual dissidences in Brazilian cinema.