Candomblé in Togo (1972)
Candomblé is a religion of West African origin, carried to the Americas through the transatlantic slave trade and most associated today with Brazil, particularly the north-eastern state of Bahia. Its rituals involve music, movement, possession and a rich system of spiritual figures known as orixás, and it has survived centuries of suppression, syncretism and misrepresentation to remain a living practice for millions. The title of this 1972 short film, then, raises an immediate question: what is Candomblé doing in Togo? The answer, in all likelihood, relates to the broader currents of Pan-Africanism and cultural exchange that shaped parts of West Africa during the independence era, when Brazilian returnees of African descent, known as Agudás, brought Afro-Brazilian religious practices back across the Atlantic. It is a genuinely rich area of cultural history, and one that deserves serious, considered documentation.
The man behind the camera, José Agripino de Paula, was a Brazilian writer and provocateur whose work sat somewhere between the avant-garde and the experimental. Active in the 1960s and 70s, he is associated with the Brazilian counterculture movement and produced theatre as well as writing, always at some distance from the mainstream. He is not a figure known for polished, conventional filmmaking, and this short, running to just under half an hour, appears to be one of very few films he made. There is no known studio or production company attached to it, and no budget information in circulation. It feels, in other words, like a personal document rather than a commissioned work. For context on how Brazilian cinema of this period could operate at its more ambitious and formally adventurous end, it is worth glancing at Macca's review of Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury, or his look at City of God, a film that illustrates just how far Brazilian filmmaking can travel when given proper structure and intent. Neither comparison flatters this short, but they at least locate it within a broader tradition.
There is no named cast to speak of. The participants are the practitioners themselves, filmed during what appears to be an actual ritual rather than a staged performance. That gives the footage an authenticity of sorts, though authenticity alone is not the same as craft. For viewers interested in documentary practice across the African continent more broadly, Macca's review of Umuja and his write-up of Here and Elsewhere offer useful reference points for what committed, thoughtful non-fiction filmmaking of various eras can look like when the director has a clear sense of purpose and audience.
Candomblé in Togo (1972), directed by José Agripino de Paula, is a 20-minute short that occupies a curious space: it's listed among Togo's "most popular" films on platforms like Letterboxd, yet it functions less as cinema and more as archival footage. Essentially a handheld recording of traditional Candomblé dancing set to music, the film offers no narration, no context, no structure, and no attempt to guide the viewer through what they're witnessing. For those seeking insight into Togolese culture or spiritual practice, the experience is akin to stumbling upon someone else's home video: you're present, but you're not included.
Technically, the film is rudimentary to the point of abstraction. The camera quality is grainy and unstable, the framing is haphazard, and the sound is captured with all the fidelity of a 1970s cassette recorder. There's no editing rhythm, no visual storytelling, and no effort to translate the ritual's meaning for an outside audience. If you already understand Candomblé's symbolism and liturgy, you might find value in the documentation. If you don't (which is likely for most international viewers like me) you'll simply watch people move to music without knowing why, what it signifies, or what you're meant to feel.
That said, the film's existence matters. In a nation with an extremely limited cinematic infrastructure, every finished piece is a historical artifact. Candomblé in Togo captures a moment, a practice, a community, and for anthropologists, cultural historians, or diaspora viewers seeking representation, that may hold genuine significance. But significance isn't the same as watchability, and as a piece of entertainment or narrative cinema, it offers almost nothing.
Candomblé in Togo earns its single star purely for existing: it's a finished work, it documents a real cultural practice, and it represents a fragment of Togolese media history. But as cinema? It's barely a film. Watch it if you're researching West African spiritual traditions or cataloguing global short-form media. Otherwise, you'll spend 20 minutes watching dancing you don't understand, to music you can't contextualise, with no payoff, and then it'll end.
Films like this one sit awkwardly in any conversation about world cinema. They are too rough and unformed to satisfy as documentary, too removed from narrative to function as drama, and too obscure to carry much cultural weight outside specialist circles. And yet they persist, turning up on cataloguing platforms and archive lists, rated and logged by curious viewers who stumbled across them. There is something almost poignant about that: a 24-minute fragment of a ceremony in Togo, made by a Brazilian experimentalist, now filed alongside everything else in the long, sprawling record of moving images that humanity has produced. It tells you something real about the limits of cinema as a form, and something equally real about what we mean when we use the word "film" at all. Some things are recorded. Fewer things are made.
Rating: ★ | Year: 1972 | Watched: 2026-06-02
