Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca

Since 2011 the Brazilian-German duo Bárbara Wagner (1980, Brasília) and Benjamin de Burca (1975, Munich) have been producing film and video installations in close collaboration with the musicians and performers who appear in them. Their short narrative films are a blend of fiction and documentary. The focus always lies with a specific socio-cultural phenomenon.

The topic of Estás vendo coisas is Brega music, from northeastern Brazil, and its subculture of parties and self-produced videos. Brega is a genre of music in which sentimental and romantic melodies fuse with American hiphop, Brazilian techno and Caribbean reggaeton. Because technology for this became affordable, do-it-yourself recording studios sprouted up like mushroms at the start of the century and the genre has developed into a veritable industry. Via YouTube and other online platforms, the music can be shared rapidly. The folksy Brega style, once looked down upon, is now an accepted form of popular music in which gender, race and class intermingle.

Estás vendo coisas is an enthralling musical, the script of which was written, in part, by the singers and dancers. The film maps out Brega’s social landscape via the experiences of its main characters MC Porck and Dayana Paixão, showing how these young people shift between their jobs (as hairdresser and firewoman) and their images as rising pop stars. Not least of all, Estás vendo coisas documents a society in flux.