"I won’t give up
Nobody can stand in my way
As long as I can fight
Nothing can stop me...
—“Stop Me,” rap by Antonia

Making its U.S. debut screenings on September 21st, “Antonia” is a highly charged musical drama about four young, poor black women in the Sao Paulo favela, Vila Brasilandia, who struggle to survive and preserve their friendship and to live the dream of singing together as a rap group – where male rappers are the standard. The film documents their rise to triumph through daunting socio-cultural and music industry obstacles including sexism, violence and personal jealousies. Their exhilarating and heartening message focuses on the empowerment of women and creation of a brighter perspective on life against all odds.

According to Carlos Gutierrez, Co-Founding Director of Cinema Tropical, who is promoting this smash hit film, the Brazilian director Tata Amaral is now in the midst of producing the second season of the television series named after the group’s film stage name, “Antonia.” This is all the more unusual for Brazilian television that rarely airs stories about Afro-Brazilian women who remain disenfranchised, excluded members of Brazilian society. Through the huge success of the television series and the film itself, the four singers, Preta (Negra Li), Lena (Cindy), Barbarah (Leilah Moreno) and Mayah (Quelynah), who all grew up in Sao Paulo’s outskirt favelas have now become more than ever real-life stars.

The foursome portrays street-wise, tough women who will not tolerate being pushed around and capable of some mean kung-fu whacks and kicks, yet the film delivers enough drama to underscore each woman’s deeply sensitive, female soul. Their sorrows and joys communicate with varying poignancy and assertiveness through the soundtrack’s great music: rap, soul and R&B, laced with samba’s inherent lyrical poetry. By comparison with the stereotypical misogynous insults in American male rap/hip-hop, Antonia transforms rap into a weapon of affirmation and celebration by women, thereby becoming all the more captivating as a style.

With simplicity and economy, the cinematography weaves through tense favela housing project living quarters, poorly lit unpaved streets where thugs lie waiting for prey at night, to local dancehall staging to small nightclubs and a women’s prison. There are also moving rooftop passages of a woman’s solitude at dawn that open up broad vistas of Sao Paulo, whose far-off horizons seem to promise more than the miseries of daily life.
Dreams do come true – despite many tears and much hardship - with a song in their hearts for Antonia. It is no wonder that this film’s story is beloved by millions in Brazil and bound to make you silently cheer at the end. As “Antonia’s” producer, Fernando Mireilles, Director of “The City of God” comments: “It’s a movie to do away with the idea that “young lady” is synonymous with fragility or submission. Repeat after me: Women Warriors.”

“Antonia” is now showing in New York at the Quad Cinema and The Coliseum; in New Jersey at Newark Screens; and in L.A. at the Music Box Theater.

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