Taken in Bonds
A mother and daughter set out on an emotional and ancestral journey sparked by the creation of a family tree. Through archival images, family testimonies, performances, and poetic fabulations, they uncover the marks of a lineage of women shaped by violence, silencing, and reinvention. Pega a Laço is a river-film about belonging, identity, and freedom — where memory flows, and the leap becomes flight.
Synopsis
From the source of the Tietê River to the deep waters of the Tocantins, a mother and daughter embark on an intimate and dizzying journey through their roots, identities, and contradictions. Lilian, a 53-year-old Black filmmaker from Salto/SP, feels displaced, as if she belongs nowhere. Her 12-year-old daughter Dandara, on the other hand, takes pride in the city where she was born and raised. What begins as a simple school assignment — building a family tree — unfolds into an emotional and historical investigation through family memories, archival records, and poetic fabulations.
In search of the women in their lineage — Isabel, Madalena, Dalva — Lilian reconstructs episodes of violence, erasure, and survival, confronting themes such as racism, sexism, religious colonization, and the subtle eroticism embedded in everyday life. Mother and daughter travel across Brazil, moving through real and imagined geographies: from a miniature model of their home to the Bananal Island, from São Paulo’s outskirts to the heart of the Cerrado, between Iny rituals and the Saint Lazarus feasts.
Blending documentary and fiction, memory and performance, the film is also a meditation on the inheritance of female bodies marked by histories of domination, but also of reinvention and liberation. Pega a Laço is, above all, a rite of passage between generations — a choreography of women who, even when roped in, insist on jumping.
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professional team
Director and Screenwriter
Lilian Solá Santiago
Director, screenwriter, and audiovisual researcher, she is one of the pioneers of Black Brazilian cinema. Her career began with the Cinema Feijoada collective, and she directed her first documentary in 2006. Since then, she has created more than ten films and contributed to nationally recognized scripts and productions, with a focus on Black and Indigenous cultural themes through a decolonial lens. She is currently a PhD candidate at ECA-USP, where she is developing the concept of the Occupation Documentary.
Executive Producer
Wadih Elkadi
Is an executive producer, director, and screenwriter with extensive experience in Brazilian audiovisual production, particularly in fiction and documentary. He is one of the creators of the series Barco Sagres (TV Cultura), with two seasons and 160 short-format episodes directed. As a producer, his work has been selected for acclaimed festivals such as Festival de Tiradentes, BAFICI, Festival de Brasília, and Cinema du Réel, including feature films like Taego Ãwa, Mascarados, and El Último País.
He has served as executive producer on documentaries and TV series broadcast by networks such as ESPN, Canal Futura, and TV Brasil, with highlights including No País do Football and Pelas Beiradas. Wadih also works as executive director of film events and festivals, including the International Biennial of Sound Cinema (BIS) and the Lanterna Mágica International Animation Festival. He has participated in major industry markets and labs such as BAM (Colombia), MIFA (France), Ventana Sur (Argentina), MAFIZ (Spain), and Diáspora Lab (Brazil).
He is currently the executive producer of Pega a Laço – A Story from the Middle, an expanded narrative film that blends documentary, performance, and poetic fabulation in an intergenerational journey through the deep territories of Brazil in search of ancestry, identity, and belonging.
Director’s Statement – Feature Film Taken in Bonds
My name is Lilian Solá Santiago, and I am the director and creator of the feature film Taken in Bonds. This project emerged during the pandemic, born from a deep reflection on the women in my family. Although there is no explicit history of violence, I came to understand that their lives like those of so many others were shaped by various forms of submission to patriarchy. It was from this awareness that I felt compelled to create a work that could give voice to these experiences, with attentiveness, sensitivity, and courage.
Taken in Bonds is more than a film. It is a personal and collective journey. From the initial concept to the most recent development stages, the project has taken shape as a hybrid between documentary and fiction, deeply rooted in the lives of Latin American women their memories, their wounds, and their creative power.
The journey so far has been intense and transformative. Public funding supported the early stages of development, and creative labs such as DOCSP, BrLab, Dia.Lab, Nicho 2023, and the Miradasafro Incubator were essential in shaping the film’s backbone. In 2024, while attending the Berlin Film Festival, I witnessed the rising strength of hybrid and boundary-pushing cinema such as Pepe and Memories of a Burning Body. I realized then that Taken in Bonds is aligned with this evolving global cinematic language.
We are now working on strong production and distribution strategies to bring this film to audiences in Brazil and abroad. I believe this story built with artistic rigor and emotional commitment speaks directly to the urgencies of our time and the need to reimagine narratives about women, ancestry, and resistance.
Taken in Bonds is a gesture of listening to silenced voices. It is also an act of healing a bridge between past and present, between trauma and creation. I deeply believe in the power of this narrative and the impact it can generate.
I count on the support needed to continue this journey, so that this lasso, which connects so many women in resistance and creativity, can finally become a symbol of freedom.
With courage and care,
Lilian Solá Santiago
Thank you!
Contact information
TERRA FIRME DIGITAL – 2025
