Race, Gender and Territory: Climate Change Agenda
Interview with Diosmar Filho

Byr Susan Thomson

In collaboration with Luiz Guilherme Vergara and Jessica Gogan

Diosmar Filho is a geographer and filmmaker. Born in 1979, he is the son of Osàlufan and Ogan of Omolu in Ilê Asè Oya Tolà, in the district from the Passagem dos Teixeiras (Candeias, Bahia). For over two decades he has lived in the city of Salvador, Bahia, where in joining movements and struggles fighting racism and the socioenvironmental exclusion of urban and rural Black populations, he has been promoting a counter-colonial “southern geography”. He has undergraduate and masters degrees in geography respectively from the Catholic University of Salvador (UCSAL) and the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). His work includes studies, research, books, articles and films contributing to the processes of recognition and conquest of the ancestral territories of the Black Quilombola population and Candomblé Terreiro Peoples in the state of Bahia.

In 2024 he completed his PhD in geography from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Rio de Janeiro. He works on the environmental and climate agenda. He coordinated the project on Climate Change in the Face of the Recognition of Black Territories of the Brazilian Association of Black Researchers (ABPN) and is co-founder and researcher at IYALETA: Research, Sciences and Humanities, where he coordinates the project Urban Legal Amazon: Socio-spatial Analysis of Climate Change (2020/2022) and leads the research line Inequalities and Climate Change. He is the author of the book The Geopolitics of the State and the Quilombola Territory in the 21st Century, Paco Editorial (2018). As a documentary filmmaker, he directed Igi Oba Nile – Memories of Mother Raidalva (66 min. N5 Filmes, 2014). His most recent film documentary is Terras que Libertam (Lands that Liberate – Stories of the Cupertinos), 52 min. Ajayô Filmes, 2021. The film chronicles the journey of the Black quilombola population in Chapada Diamantina, a freedom movement led by the brothers Júlio Cupertino and Jaime Cupertino. The documentary reveals the contemporary quilombola struggle for territorial and social rights .

Diosmar was interviewed as part of Susan Thomson’s artistic residency with the MESA Institute in 2022, with international support from the British Council’s Plural Program. During the residency, Susan made the short film Tybyra and the Harlequin. Excerpts from the interview with Diosmar appear in her film, which is published here in full in a special edition in collaboration with Diosmar.

We are deeply grateful to Diosmar Filho and Susan Thomson, Rodolfo Rizzo of macaverde films for editing, and the British Council for their essential support. For additional images and music special thanks to Alexandra Pessoa, Amazônia Real, Iyaleta Research Association, Maurício Lorenço and Nelson Maca.

Interview link

Additional links
@diosmarfilho​

Real Amazon
https://amazoniareal.com.br/por-que/

Iyaleta Research Association
https://iyaleta.org/quem-somos/conselho-cientifico/

Music: “Baba”
Poem by Nelson Maca “Let me be the king”
Voice and fire extinguisher: Alexandra Pessoa
Electric piano:Mauricio Lorenço
Album : Visit , 2017
https://deezer.page.link/n u xAriwGYg4Ht3 J y9  

Trailer: Terras que Libertam
https://youtu.be/qXzds1wmoU0?feature=shared