‘An increasing number of priests from candomblé – an Afro-Brazilian spirit possession cult – publicly demand that their creed is recognized as a full-fledged ‘religion’. In this article I discuss how this demand is part of a larger political project whereby candomblé priests seek to assert their voice in the public sphere of Salvador, Bahia, thus to counter the all out appropriation of...
What is it that you film when you film a spirit? Shot in Bahia (Brazil), The Possibility of Spirits is an essay film that keeps the baffling mystery of spirit possession center stage. In a poetic assemblage of images and words, it offers an alternative for the kind of documentary that either exoticizes spirit possession in spectacular imagery, or extinguishes the wonder of the phenomenon in...