Cemitério Verde Green Cemetery

2023, Jardim agroflorestal, curta-metragem experimental, 25 min, vídeo digital Agroforestry garden, short film, experimental, 25min, digital video

Green Cemetery is a syntropic garden and a short film that originated when my mother and I relocated to Alto Paraíso de Goiás, situated in the heart of the biodiverse Cerrado biome, known for its rich savannas. Despite its ecological significance, the Cerrado faces severe challenges due to the impact of agribusiness. Aware of the vast expanse of soybean fields surrounding us, my mother and I embarked on the transformation of our small degraded plot into a thriving agroforestry system. Concurrently, we collaborated on the creation of a film inspired by our experiences of living in this environment. The garden we cultivated attracts birds and pollinators, serving as both a refuge and a source of food for a diverse range of beings. At its center stands a multi-story vertical monument, which serves as both a fountain and a memorial. This memorial is adorned with portraits of relatives, which gradually decompose over time with the growth of mycelia. The film tells the story of Lavina, who retires and fulfills her dream of purchasing her own home. In the face of weathered soil where not even grass could grow, Lavina embarks on the planting of an agroforestry garden, offering each seedling and seed as a tribute to a loved one.

Green Cemetery was conceived during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, blending the physicality of backyard soil with the virtual realms of the Changing Landscapes residency and SAIC advisors.

This film emerged within the intimate and restricted confines of our domestic environment, shared with my mother, Lavina, my boyfriend, Ricardo, my cats, Ubu and Bume, specters, an array of other beings, and my sound collaborator Ramiro Galas.

Maurício Chades (b. 1991, Gilbués, Brazil) is a visual artist and filmmaker whose practice spans cinema and installation. Currently based between the Brazilian Midwest and Los Angeles, Chades explores queer ecologies, decolonial imaginaries, and multispecies relationships that challenge extractive perspectives on territory, time, and mortality. By weaving together speculative fabulation and critical ecology, his projects often emerge from deep territorial immersions, linking local oral histories with broader environmental systems.

Chades holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA in Art and Technology from the University of Brasília. His work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Sesc_Videobrasil Biennial, Queer Lisboa, and FILE (Electronic Language International Festival).

In 2019, he presented his solo exhibition, Pirâmide, Urubu, which received the Frankenthaler Climate Art Award in 2022. His short films have earned accolades from the e-flux Film Award, Curitiba International Film Festival, and Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival. A 2024 Pipa Prize nominee, he is currently in post-production for his debut feature film, COGUM, an eco-horror centered on decomposition and interrupted grief as frameworks to reimagine labor, ancestry, and human ties to the land.