The Body Won’t Close (2021) Mattijs van de Port

Legend has it that the capoeira player Besouro Mangangá summoned Bahia’s full magical power to seal his body from harm. Neither bullet nor knife could pierce his skin anymore. But his enemies knew that the act of love could remove this magical protection and so they sent him a beautiful woman. Even today, young men in Santo Amaro tell each other the story of Besouro Mangangá and link it to the violent reality of their precarious lives. The Body Won’t Close is an intimate and sensory journey into queer Brazil. The film poetically explores the dilemma of the human body as a porous structure and the impossibility of closing oneself off from the world and love.