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Aída Esther Bueno Sarduy

BIO

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Aída Bueno Sarduy es una antropóloga, cineasta y productora cubana. Doctora "Cum Laude" en Antropología Social y Cultural por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Tesis doctoral sobre el liderazgo de las sacerdotisas en el Xangô de Recife. Ha realizado investigaciones en Cuba y Brasil sobre las religiones africanas desde la perspectiva de género y la teoría y crítica feminista. Especialización en cultura de la diáspora africana en América Latina y relaciones interétnicas (Universidad Cándido Mendes, Centro de Estudios Afro-Asiáticos, Río de Janeiro, Brasil). 

Investiga en la actualidad los procesos de compra venta, cartas de libertad y documentos de compra de la libertad propia de mujeres africanas o afrodescendientes en Brasil, siglo XVIII y XIX, en el Estado de Pernambuco y el Estado de Bahía.

Desde 1999 trabaja como docente en diferentes universidades de los EEUU: New York University, Middlebury College, Stanford y Hamilton College. Directora del Laboratorio de Creación Artística para Mujeres Afro (2020-2024) de Mujeres Afro en Escena. Co-curadora de la muestra de cine cubano de no ficción contemporáneo, para el festival MiradasDoc, Isla de Isora, Tenerife, Canarias 2023.

 

FILMOGRAFÍA

  • 1939 días (7', 2015).

  • Guillermina (17’, 2019). Exhibida en: New Orleans Film Festival (2019) / New Orleans, United States; La casa encendida / Encuentros (2020) / Madrid, Spain; Uppsala International Short Film Festival (2020) / Uppsala, Sweden; Évreux International Educational Film Festival (2020) / Évreux, France; Centre de Cultura Contemporánea Barcelona (CCCB): Debate La cicatriz colonial (2020) / Barcelona, Spain; My First Doc (2020) / Tunis, Tunisia; FIPADOC (2021) / Biarritz; France Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (2021) / Clermont-Ferrand, France; SANFICI (2021) / Bucaramanga, Colombia.

  • Rezadeira. Largometraje documental en postproducción.

  • Anna Borges do Sacramento. Largometraje documental en producción con la ayuda a desarrollo del Sundance Film Institute, 2021; Trespuertos cine; Miradas Afro (España); SANFIC (Chile) y Márgenes work (España).

Aída Bueno Sarduy is a Cuban anthropologist, filmmaker and producer. She received her PhD "Cum Laude" in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Complutense University of Madrid. Her doctoral thesis is on the leadership of priestesses in the Xangô of Recife. She has conducted research in Cuba and Brazil on African religions from a gender perspective and feminist theory and criticism. She specializes in the culture of the African diaspora in Latin America and interethnic relations (Cándido Mendes University, Center for Afro-Asian Studies, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
She is currently researching the processes of purchase and sale, letters of freedom and documents of purchase of freedom of African or Afro-descendant women in Brazil, 18th and 19th centuries, in the State of Pernambuco and the State of Bahia.
Since 1999 she has worked as a professor at different universities in the USA: New York University, Middlebury College, Stanford and Hamilton College. Director of the Artistic Creation Laboratory for Afro Women (2020-2024) of Mujeres Afro en Escena. Co-curator of the contemporary non-fiction Cuban film exhibition, for the MiradasDoc festival, Isla de Isora, Tenerife, Canary Islands 2023.
 
FILMOGRAPHY

  • 1939 days (7', 2015).

  • Guillermina (17’, 2019). Exhibited in: New Orleans Film Festival (2019) / New Orleans, United States; La casa encendida / Encuentros (2020) / Madrid, Spain; Uppsala International Short Film Festival (2020) / Uppsala, Sweden; Évreux International Educational Film Festival (2020) / Évreux, France; Centre de Cultura Contemporánea Barcelona (CCCB): Debate La cicatriz colonial (2020) / Barcelona, ​​Spain; My First Doc (2020) / Tunis, Tunisia; FIPADOC (2021) / Biarritz; France Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (2021) / Clermont-Ferrand, France; SANFICI (2021) / Bucaramanga, Colombia.

  • Rezadeira. Documentary feature film in post-production.

  • Anna Borges do Sacramento. Documentary feature film in production with development support from the Sundance Film Institute, 2021; Trespuertos cine; Miradas Afro (Spain); SANFIC (Chile) and Márgenes work (Spain).

Aída Esther Bueno Sarduy

CURRÍCULUM VITAE

​

PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology Film Director and Producer

Education

2014

PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Cum Laude. Department of Anthropology, School of Political Science and Sociology, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Spain.

Dissertation: The Decline of Women’s Priestly Leadership in Xangô of Recife: The City of Women That Will Not Be.

2001-2002

Diploma of Advanced Studies and Research, UCM.

1999

BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology. School of Political Science and Sociology, UCM.

1998

Advanced Studies in Racial Relations and Black Culture. Afro-Asian Studies Center (CEAA). Universidad Cándido Mendes, Río de Janeiro, Brazil.

1995

Teaching Degree. Concentration: Musical and Religious Education. School of Education (ESCUNI), UCM.

Experience

2020-2024

Director of “Mujeres Afro en Escena” laboratory.

2024

Co-coordinator of the “España Negra” study group. Museo Reina Sofia. 

2024

Co-Founder of Afrodiasporic Room, an Afrocentric audiovisual consultancy. 

2024

William Greaves R&D Fund Selection Committee.

2024

Screenwriter of the Núcleo Criativo Películas Negras, Saturnema Filmes, Brazil. 

Teaching Experience

Hamilton College, Madrid, Spain

2023 The Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality: The Colonial Imaginary and Other Forms of Knowledge.

 2019-2022 Culture Shock. Hamilton College, Madrid, Spain. 2001-2017 Anthropology of Spain.

Middlebury College, Madrid, Spain

2019-2023 Migration, Cultural Diversity and Social Integration in Spain. 2005-2016 / 2018 Anthropology of Spain.
2005-2017 Spain and Latin America. Constructing a Common Cultural Space.
2001-2005 Contemporary Religious Movements and Groups in Latin America and Spain. 2001 Immigration in Spain. Evolution, trends and challenges of the 21st century.
2001 and 2005 Ethnic Majorities and Minorities: Implications of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Spain. 1999-2002 Ethnic Majorities and Minorities: Implications of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Spain.

Middlebury College, Vermont, USA

2018-2023 Women in Colonial America: Perspectives from the Anthropology of Gender and Visual Anthropology.
2016-2022 Mestizaje and Inter Ethnic Relations in Latin American Societies. 2016-2017 Afro American Cultures in Latin America.
2007 Culture through Anthropology.
2007 Afro-American and Indigenous Cultures.

NYU, Madrid, Spain

2014-2023 Migration and Cultural Diversity in Spain.
2017 Women in Colonial America: Perspectives from the Anthropology of Gender and Visual Anthropology. 2017 A Cultural History of Latin America. Module I: Transculturation and Colonialism. 2002-2015 Ibero-American Anthropology.
2003-2013 Miscengenation and Interethnic Relations in Ibero-American Societies.

Boston University, Madrid, Spain

2008-2016 / 2019-2023 Migration and Cultural Diversity in Spain. 2007-2011 Seminar on migratory movement in Spain.
2007-2015 Anthropology of Ibero-America.

Stanford University, Madrid, Spain

2019-2023 Migration and Cultural Diversity in Spain. 

 St. Lawrence University, Madrid, Spain

2014-2016 Spain and Latin America. Constructing a Common Cultural Space
2008-2016 Migration and Cultural Diversity in Spain.

 St. Lawrence University, Madrid, Spain

2014-2016 Spain and Latin America. Constructing a Common Cultural Space
2008-2016 Migration and Cultural Diversity in Spain.

 Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, Brazil

 2002 Research methodologies applied to the field of Afro-Brazilian Religious studies.

 UCM, Madrid, Spain

1998 Intercultural Education and Interethnic Relations. Centre for Studies on Migration and Racism (CEMIRA). Statistics Department.

Research and Field work

  • 2021-2024 Rio de Contas Municipal Archive. Bahia, Brazil. File Anna Borges do Sacramento.

  • 2018 Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Pernambuco, Brasil. Letters of liberty and contracts for the sale of slave women in Brazil, nineteenth century.

  • 2017 Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Pernambuco, Brasil. Enslaved and free Black women in the 19th century photographic archive.

  • 2015 Visiting Researcher of ethnography in Cuba. Women in Cuban Santeria.

  • 2011-2012 Consultant for the implementation of the Cultural Center and Regional Ethnographic Museum of Piracuruca, Piauí, Brazil.

  • 2005-2012 Visiting Researcher of ethnography in Cuba and Brazil for the comparative study of Cuban Santeria and Xangó in Recife, Brazil.1998-2004 Visiting Researcher of Brazilian ethnography (Río de Janeiro, Salvador de Bahía, São Luis do Maranhão y Recife), Brazil.

  • 2001 Research on the implementation of Cuban Santeria in Spain for the completion of a Diploma of Advanced Studies and Research.

  • 1999 Work Group Coordinator for Social-Health study on Sexually Transmitted Diseases in female immigrants completed by CEMIRA for the Health and Social Services Commission of the Community of Madrid.

  • 1998 Member of the Association for Study and Dialogue with the Hispanic Cultures of North America (ADECHAN). Registre Provincial d’Associacions de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Secció 1ª, número 12.598 – 1991.

  • 1997 Consultant for the National School Survey: “Racist Attitudes and Unifying Values of Spanish Youth.” Director: Tomás Calvo Buezas, Ph.D.

  • 1997-2005 Collaborator and Researcher for Centre for Studies on Migration and Racism (CEMIRA), Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Spain.

  • 1997: Collaborator on Project carried out by the School of Social Mediators of the Community of Madrid, Social Affairs Commission “The Social and Educational Integration of Incarcerated Female Immigrants.”
     

Conferences, Seminars, Presentations

  • 2024 (october) Presentation and discussion on the film “Guillermina”. Department of Art History, Cinema and Audiovisual Media, University of Montreal, Canada.

  • 2024 (october) Dr Esmeralda Thornhill Black Feminist speaker series. Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Faculty of Arts and Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

  • 2024 Podcast on the Exhibition “Un réquiem por la humanidad, deshumanizaciones, poder y 200,00 futurismos negros”, La Casa Encendida, with curator Tania Safura Adam.

  • 2024 Inaugural conference, 5th Meeting of Mujeres Afro en Escena. You can’t tell my story. Zapopan, Mexico. 2024 Teatre Lliure, ProCarlota, Residency Program for grants to creation, Barcelona.

  • 2023 Round tables: "Black maternity and the body politic", and "Epistemologies of the relationship: Afropolitics and decolonial feminisms". International Summit of Afro-descendants 2023: Freedom in the Big House: Defense of the Territory, Environmental Racism and Affirmation of Afro-descendants. San Juan, Puerto Rico, March.

  • Dressed up for flight: Joaquina of Angola. Audiovisual project.

  • 2020 The evolutionist and colonial logic in the audiovisual narrative. Representation or deformation of alterity? Industry Academy Latin America, 4th edition, Chile.

  • 2021 Seminar "The public of the future". FICUNAM (Mexico) 11th edition. Opening conference: "Acuerparnos", give us a voice outside the center.2022 Lecture: Minors and young immigrants in care: from fetishist denial to reparation devices. Conference "INFANCIAS ATRAPADAS". Ateneo de Cáceres, February 18.

  • 2021 Lecture: "Racism and intimacy: black women in the colonial imaginary". Social and cultural association for women MARARÍA. Lanzarote, October 27.

  • 2020 Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona. Meeting with Aída Esther Bueno Sarduy. Presentation of the short film "Guillermina" and discussion with the director (Aída Bueno). December 14.

  • 2020 Biographical references for an Afrocentered feminism. Within the cycle Women against impunity, organized by AMG (Guatemalan Women's Association). La Casa Encendida. February 25.

  • 2019 Intercultural Meeting "Other Masculinities". Proyetco BreakIN, Diputación de Cáceres. March 12.

  • 2018 Conference "Human Rights for all: global practices of feminist activism". Asociación de Mujeres de Guatemala (AMG), Badajoz and Cáceres, December 10 and 11. Resistances and transnational knowledge: the legacy of black, indigenous and mestizo women for global activism. Lecture: Emancipatory projects of Afro- descendant women. Dialogues with Western academic feminism.

  • 2018 CCCB (Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona). Biennial of thought. Open City. Seminar presentation with Rita Segato.

  • 2018 First Week of African Literature in Spanish Language. WANÁFRICA Club. Speaker at the session on "Sexualities in African literature".

  • 2017 Cooking for the gods. Mythology, philosophy and African thought in Afro-descendant religions. Closing conference of the exhibition "Santa Comida" by Antoni Miralda. Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao. September 14.

  • 2017 Seminar presenter of “Women’s Leadership in Xangô of Recife: Decline and Masculine Appropriation of Religious Space. ” Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Insitut d’Història Jaume Vicens i Vives, Barcelona. February 10.

  • 2016 2nd AIBR International Conference of Anthropology. Identity: Bridges, Thresholds and Barriers. Barcelona. Paper: Presence and Leadership of Women in Afro-Descendant Religions. September 6-9.

  • 2011-2012 Teacher Training. Seminars on the use of cultural centers and regional ethnographic museums as teaching tools in primary and secondary education. Piracuruca, Piauí, Brazil.

  • 2008 Seminar on “The treatment of immigration in the Spanish media”, for the Course on Globalization, Migration, and Multiculturalism. Organized by CEMIRA.

  • 2007 Presentation: Ethnography and fieldwork in Xangô de Recife, Brazil. Colloquium: “Observers and the observed in popular religious studies”. University of Cádiz, Spain.

  • 2006: Presentation “Sexual economy in Cuban Santería”. Colloquium: “Gender, sexuality and popular religious practices". University of Cádiz, Spain.

  • 2005 Teacher training course on the topics of migration and intercultural education. Seminar topic: Female immigrants in Spain: An analysis through feminist theory and criticism. CEMIRA. UCM, Madrid, Spain.

  • 2002 Regional Excellence Program (PRONEX): Contemporary Global Religious Movements.2001 Presentation at the 10th Conference of the International Federation for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (FIEALC). Latin American Institute. Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

  • 2000 Health and Immigration: Prostituted immigrant women in the Community of Madrid. University of Cádiz, Spain.

  • 1999 Presentation: Immigration in the 21st Century: Challenges for Spain as a multicultural society. Colegio Mayor Nuestra Señora de África, Madrid, Spain.

  • 1999 Coordinator of the Symposium on Afro-American Religious Groups. 7th Meeting of Spanish Latin Americanists. Cáceres, Spain.

  • 1998 Women in Afro-Brazilian Religious Groups: The impact of sex/gender, race, and ethnicity within the Candomblé religion. Río de Janeiro, Brazil.

  • 1997 Seminar: Education in multiracial contexts: Brazil-USA.

  • 1997:1st Course on ongoing teacher training. Department of Statistics, UCM, Spain.

Publications

  • Afrocentring and emancipating the black women's gaze: Yemayá, Oyá- Yansán and Ochún as ancestral referents of our liberation practices. História debates e tendências. V. 22, N. 4, p. 13-38, Passo Fundo, 2022.

  • Eve and Yemayá: two myths to think feminism. Philosophy of History and Feminisms. Pensar nuestro tiempo collection. Teresa Oñate and Magda Lasheras (Editors). Madrid, 2020.

  • Art and colonial (dis)memory, published in the compilation Kentridge. Lo que no está escrito on December 22, 2020 in the digital magazine of the CCCB LAB.

  • Las afrodescendientes no somos feministas de habitación propia, sino de barracón (Entrevista). Sara Beltrame, Feminismos, El Salto diario, 2 de diciembre de 2018.

  • African American Cults. Gods, Orishas, Santeria and Voodoo. José Ignacio Urquijo Valdivielso , Tomás Calvo Buezas (eds.). Ediciones Eunate, 2016. Cap. VIII: Vestidos para encantar a los dioses: sensualidad, belleza y erotismo en la Santería cubana y el Xangô de Recife. Pp. 291-314.

  • Encounters Between Gods and Mortals: Mitigating the Remoteness of the Divine in Afro-Brazilian Religious Ritual. Almenara, Official Journal of the Extremadura Sociology Association (ACISE) No. 8 -2016.

  • Dressed to Charm the Gods: Sensuality, Beauty, and Eroticism in Cuban Santería and the Xangó de Recife. Afro-Hispanic Review, Volume 34, Number 1, Spring 2015, Vanderbilt University. pp. 9-24.

  • Umbanda: The Power of the Fringe (review). Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 624, June 2002. Pp. 135-137.

  • Health and Immigration: Sexually transmitted diseases in immigrant women. SOCIEDAD y UTOPÍA, Revista de Ciencias Sociales, No. 16, November 2000, Departments of Political Science and Sociology, León XIII. Pp. 291-308.

IBIRÍ FILMES’ PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR

  • 2025 (January - February) “Rezadeira” (WIP). Audiovisual installation Joaquina de Angola CCCB Barcelona. 2024 (October) Joaquina de Angola audiovisual installation, Afromuseum- Afro-Canadien Museum.

  • 2019 “Guillermina” (17‘ Spain-Brazil-Cuba).

  • 2015 “1939 Días”. (7‘ Spain)

  • 2015: Documentary film training. Certified by Mirada Compartida and DOCMA (Asociación de Cine Documental), Madrid. España.

WORKS IN PROGRESS:

  • “Rezadeira” (Documentary Feature Film).

  • “Anna Borges do Sacramento” (Documentary Feature Film).

  • “El padre preso” (Documentary Short Film).

  • “Naufrágio” (Genre Short Film).

  • “Maquillaje de boda” (Genre Short Film).

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