Is the idea to focus on new or thematic or music-led Brazilian films?
‘It will mainly be thematic. The first one, for instance, will be loosely themed on films which reference religion in Brazil. Obviously as we are a musical night we like to show films with music but that can be quite tricky. We will do a night featuring films with music but they need to be enjoyable as films, not just because of some specific musical content.’ Q: How is the musical mix at Batmacumba between classic and contemporary tunes? A: ‘That changes every few months. It’s always shifting around. There’s a lot of great new music, but as for how it will develop musically, it’s hard to say. To know what’s happening you’ve really got to go to Brazil for a month and root it out. There are small bands which live off touring around Brazil and never think of coming abroad, and musical scenes that develop in megacities like Sao Paulo which just don’t get publicity, even with the internet and other media. And that’s always been how Batmacumba works – that we go out to Brazil for one or so
