“My first journey to the Old World. My post-colonial adventurous fantasy. 
(Does a discourse change an image?)”

Thinya is a semiotic experiment born from director Lia Letícia’s experience when she first visited the Old World. As an Afro-Brazilian woman occupying the land of plenty in the other side of the seas, dealing with its natives - so ethnically distinct from her - and discovering its treasures, she imagined an inverted journey like the ones braved by those natives’ ancestors five centuries earlier.
What is the effect of a particular discourse on images of a distant land? 

Lia Letícia exploits the power of old narratives and anonymous photographs to explain the importance of what is said, by whom, and over which symbols. The film is a mindful subversion of History, twisting the point of view of centuries-old transatlantic relations, and inviting us to reflect on identity and territory under colonisation. Thinya is narrated in Yatê, the language of the Fulni-ô tribe of Northeast Brazil, by Thinya Fulni-ô (Maria Pastora). Its original music was composed by Claudio N and performed with the help of Fulni-ô musicians. Experimental composer Thelmo Cristovam was responsible for sound capture, design and editing. The images came from anonymous pictures bought at a flea market in Berlin.