Pai Pote

A record on Brazilian samba school Estação Primeira de Mangueira's victory on the 2016 carnaval parade. Mangueira's parade that year was a homage to singer Maria Bethânia. The documentary also follows Bethânia on the celebrations of Our Lady of Purification, in Bahia, northeast of Brazil.

How can a queer, androgynous Brazilian, son of a saint in Candomblé, an immigrant from Santo Amaro da Purificação in Europe, for 23 years bring together more than 60 thousand people dancing to the sounds of atabaques in the streets of Paris? This ritual, the Lavagem da Madeleine, which washes the steps of the French church, is intertwined with the life of his creator, the dancer from the Paradis Latin cabaret, Robertinho Chaves. In search of his identity in the Afro-Brazilian diaspora of Paris, he is about to cross the border of masculine and feminine, between the sacred and the profane.