Jonathas De Andrade - Jogos dirigidos (Directed games)

Jogos dirigidos (Directed games) is set in the arid backlands of Várzea Queimada, an off-the-grid town in Brazil’s Nordeste. Among the town’s nine hundred inhabitants is an unusually large population of deaf individuals. Resembling an educational video that engages the audience through teaching methods, de Andrade’s work depicts a group from this community as they use a nuanced, self-taught system of gestural signs to enact staged testimonials and play outdoor games. This participatory video, inspired by Augusto Boal’s Teatro do Oprimido (Theater of the Oppressed), shows how the characters on screen communicate with one another through expressive physicality and affirm the richness of language beyond audible voices—an important lesson for the viewer.