Name: AxéDocs – Bahia Documentary Mini-Fest
Start: 2026-03-19T18:30:00-04:00
Location: Brazilian Endowment for the Arts

$Ax\u00e9Docs \u2013 Bahia Documentary Mini-Fest$

Yá Nitinha D’ Oxum, Priestess of Oxum and Sisters of Good Death - two documentary short films from Bahia.
Introduced by directors in presence in New York - Caco Monteiro (Brazil) and Yoruba Richen (US)
Free, in Portuguese with English subtitles.
Yá Nitinha D’ Oxum, Priestess of Oxum tells the life story and spiritual journey of Areonithe da Conceição Chagas, widely known as Yá Nitinha D’Oxum — a revered ialorixá (priested woman) of Afro-Brazilian candomblé. Initiated into the worship of Oxum at just four years old in Salvador’s Casa Branca do Engenho Velho, she later moved to Rio de Janeiro where she founded the Ilê Asé Iyá Nassô Oká Ilê Osun in Nova Iguaçu in 1971. The film traces her leadership, community building, and spiritual legacy — from a modest beginning under a parachute tarp to the establishment of a lasting spiritual center that today counts over 500 initiated children of santo. It also features testimonials from her family, followers, and religious peers highlighting her influence as a religious leader and cultural figure in Afro-Brazilian communities.
Special award at the Mostra Sal festival.
Sisters of the Good Death is a documentary film by filmmaker Yoruba Richen that explores the history, culture, and spiritual life of an extraordinary Afro-Brazilian women’s society known as the Irmandade da Boa Morte (“Sisterhood of the Good Death”). Richen began the project after winning a Fulbright Award and traveling to Brazil, where she documented this sisterhood—the oldest African women’s association in the Americas—and the annual festival they hold in celebration of freedom from slavery and ancestral life. Sisters of the Good Death offers an intimate look at how Afro-Brazilian women sustain a vibrant, historic tradition that honors resistance, collective care, and cultural resilience in Bahia.