"Aniversário Vó Natália": twenty years later

Abstract

I got off a bus in Belo Horizonte on a cold July morning in 2024, stepping onto a land I had only set foot on a few times in my life, back when my great-grandmother Natália was still alive. Returning to the home of relatives is a movement driven by longing and the search for our origins — a process of "getting to know the family" that intertwines with my PhD research in Social Anthropology. During this visit, I was surprised by the discovery of a two-part DVD titled "Aniversário Vó Natália" (Grandma Natália’s Birthday), which portrays in detail the celebration of my great-grandmother’s 90th birthday. It was in 2004, and my family had ventured for the second time by car from São Paulo to Minas Gerais. Like a survival of the past and a glimpse into our future, this footage — which I didn’t even remember existed — was filmed with a camera rented by the family and passed from hand to hand, a collective gesture to preserve that day in memory.