Já que ninguém me tira para dançar is a never-before-seen feature film, originally recorded in U-Matic tapes, and recently restored. New interviews and recordings were added to the 1982 originals that were digitized in 2015. Finished in HDTV, the film rescues Leila Diniz’s role in modern culture, as an artist who stood up for women’s freedom during the harshest years of the military dictatorship in Brazil in the 1960s.
Created by director and actress Ana Maria Magalhães, who was Diniz’s friend, the film is the record of a period and shows images from films, photos and fictional scenes lived by the actress Leila Diniz, revealing her libertarian way of being and acting at a time that inspired cultural and behavioural advances worldwide. Diniz’s famous interview with O Pasquim in 1969 aroused the indignation of the military and the contempt of feminists who considered her just vulgar.
Authentic and spontaneous, Diniz was the spokeswoman for a censored generation. She won hearts and minds under the sign of love and at the same time generated hostility from defenders of morals and conservatives, especially after posing in a bikini for a magazine, at eight months pregnant. Diniz spoke openly about everything, including her sexuality. Just like rebels Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse, Diniz died at the age of 27, in a plane crash in India, while returning from a film festival in Australia, where she received the best actress award.