Nearly 200 years ago, a group of enslaved and freed Muslims known as the Malês led a revolt in Salvador, Bahia, in 1835, shaking the foundations of Brazil’s empire. Now, this epic story of courage and the struggle for freedom arrives in theaters on October 2 with the film Malês, directed by veteran filmmaker Antonio Pitanga, 86, and starring his daughter, actress Camila Pitanga, as Sabina.
In an interview with BdF, the father-daughter duo spoke about the emotion of finally bringing to life a project that has taken almost 30 years of work and mobilization to reach the screen. Read the highlights of the interview below:
BdF: We are very moved by this film, not only because of what it represents, but because we know it took nearly 30 years of effort, knocking on doors for financing and support. Antonio, how does it feel to see this film finally reaching theaters?
Antonio Pitanga: Everything! Each time I watch it, I am surprised. I’ve acted in more than a hundred films, shorts and features, but I was shaped by theater and cinema. It’s one of the most beautiful moments of my career. I can say: it was worth it, Pitanga, to walk this path as an actor and now as a director.
I see the film as a contribution of gratitude. Culture gave me my citizenship. I became Antônio Pitanga through culture, from Bahia de Todos os Santos in 1959, to Glauber Rocha’s Barravento, to The Given Word, which won the Palme d’Or. Then came Cacá Diegues, Ganga Zumba, and so many others. Malês brings together all those influences of my generation, our questions: what kind of Brazil do we want, what kind of Brazil do we imagine? The film is part of that reflection.
Camila, when did you first hear about the Malês Revolt? Was it through your father?
Camila Pitanga: Yes. It was a story told at home. In Black communities, we keep alive the tradition of oral history. My father brought me this story with the desire that it not remain only within the family, but inspire others.
That’s why this film has such a strong political dimension. It challenges the narrative of enslaved people as passive. The Malês Revolt was one of many uprisings, and its magnitude shows that we are the subjects of our own history. We can shift the tectonic plates of history, not only of the past, but of the future we are building.
What was it like to shoot this film as a family, on such a big set?
Camila Pitanga: I always called him “dad,” but with full respect for the director. The set was full of passion and complicity. I’ll never forget seeing him, barefoot and covered in mud as his character Pacífico Licutã, script in hand, leading more than 200 extras at two in the morning. He was 82 then, completely present, passionate, inspiring everyone.
Earlier this year, as Brazil marked 190 years since the Malês Revolt, we spoke with historian João José Reis, who served as the film’s historical advisor and is considered a master of Brazilian historiography. We asked him a provocative question: what would Brazil have been like if the Malês Revolt had succeeded? He answered that “Haiti could have been here.” What do you think?
Antonio Pitanga: Do you know how many years it took after the uprising for Brazil as a whole to even learn about the Malês? Brazil, with its continental size and dominated by sugarcane barons of Bahia… Bahia was the largest slave port, but other states like Pernambuco, Minas Gerais, Maranhão also had them. These colonels, these powerful men, held back the news of the revolt for nearly five years.
They feared that if Brazil. without the speed of today’s technology, had learned the scale of the uprising, it could have turned into another Haiti. So it took five years before the entire country even knew that a slave rebellion had taken place.
Camila Pitanga: And even then, with time, the official history did not tell the story. That erasure was strategic. The emergence of a film like Malês is meant to provoke, to awaken people to the fact that not everything we live with has to remain as it is. We are the subjects of our own time. It’s up to us to look back and reflect on how many struggles there were, how many uprisings. Things may have seemed quiet, but they were not. There were countless revolts.
Antonio Pitanga: Our relationship with João José Reis was fundamental. Manuela Dias, João José, and I held a workshop at Camila’s house in Rio with the entire cast, though many actors changed over time, given how long the project took and the pandemic. His book Slave Rebellion in Brazil allowed us to go beyond technique, to humanize the story.
What was the life expectancy of an enslaved person? What tools were used, what instruments of torture? All of that is there. So how do we translate that into a narrative, fictionalize just enough to make it a film? That’s what you’ll find in Malês: perspectives you won’t learn in school or even in university. You’ll see Luiza Mahin, often absent from official history. You’ll see Iyá Nassô, the first Black woman to establish a Candomblé temple in Brazil, the Casa Branca. And we bring together her leadership in Candomblé with that of Arruna, a Malê hero. Because we are made of many nations, many origins.
Each time I watch the film, I think: wonderful, we got it right. And we are just one small part of this bigger history. When you see Sabina dancing in Xangô’s house, she is being guided by one of Candomblé’s greatest leaders.
Camila Pitanga: Sabina, the historical figure I portray, appears in archival documents. She is a dialogue with traces of the past, grounded in the meticulous research of João José Reis. And I must thank historian Luciana Brito, who is writing Sabina’s biography and helped me understand her point of view: why she betrayed the movement, why she refused to join.
She was a freedwoman who had built some autonomy: she worked as a cook, she had her home, her family. She didn’t want to risk losing it all. But the beauty is that her husband, Vitório, saw things differently.
This tension between perspectives also emerges between Mamãe Iyá Nassô and Arruna, who sought her alliance. Whether in differences or in unity, this diversity and richness of history can be emblematic for how we rethink our present.
The cast also includes Rocco Pitanga, Valdineia Soriano, and Jhonas Araújo. The film, shot in Bahia, combines historical depth with cinematic grandeur, exploring both the repression of the dictatorship of slavery and the resilience of culture, faith, and community. For the Pitangas, Malês is not just about the past, but about confronting Brazil’s present and future.
Malês premieres in Brazilian theaters on October 2.
Read the full interview in Portuguese.
