May I Enter

Candomblé is the Afro-Brazilian religion combining the belief in a spiritual world with Christian influences. In Salvador di Bahia, the filmmaker meets the same saints that her grandmother used to know. Banovic films the colourful crowds and the exuberant incantations with which the candomblé gods are invoked. She realises she is making nice snapshots like any tourist, without comprehending much. Banovic, whose habit it is to undergo a local ritual anywhere she goes, wants to be more than just a spectator. She wants to feel what it feels like to be completely absorbed by the other world. An old priestess takes her under her wings and leads her through the ceremonies that are required before the gods want to enter the body. Banovi? longs for surrender, although she finds it hard to shake off the Westerner inside her. But as an artist, she still has her individual form of magic, as the closing scene demonstrates.