Gustavo Maan

Gustavo Maan is a Brazilian film curator and researcher from Minas Gerais. He holds a BA in Film Studies from the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP), with additional training in anthropology, and an MA in Communication and Culture Studies from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (ECO-UFRJ). Currently, he is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University. His research examines the intersections of visual culture and anthropology in contemporary Brazil, with a particular focus on religion, ritual thought, memory, and death.

His undergraduate thesis, The Image of the Secret and the Secret of the Image — Candomblé and the Visible Experience in Two Documentary Films (2021), was funded for two years by a FAPESP scholarship for young researchers, later being published in academic journals and presented at multiple conferences. His MA thesis, In the Shadow of the Archive — The Evocation of the Dead in Three Brazilian Documentaries (2024), funded by a CAPES scholarship, explores how archival art enables a dialogue with those no longer living.

As a curator, Gustavo programmed the CineDiamante Film Festival and the FESTCIMM — Itinerant Film Festival of the Middle of the World, and worked as a curatorship intern at CINUSP Paulo Emílio (2021). As an assistant curator, he is currently part of the programming team at CineBH — International Film Festival for Latin American Cinema and previously worked at the São Paulo International Short Film Festival - Curta Kinoforum (2020). As a film critic, he served on the young juries of the Tiradentes Film Festival (2020) in Brazil and the San Sebastián International Film Festival (2022) in the Basque Country.