Empowered Auralities: Memory, Disability, and Space in Mafifa (Daniela Muñoz Barroso, 2021)

This chapter delves into Daniela Muñoz Barroso’s documentary Mafifa (2021), an homage to the first Afro-Cuban female bell player and a significant figure in Santiago de Cuba’s cultural landscape. The author investigates how Muñoz Barroso’s progressive bilateral hearing loss serves as a distinctive creative tool, shaping both the aesthetic and narrative dimensions of the documentary. Through a detailed examination of sound design and the film’s sonic environment, the chapter illustrates how Muñoz Barroso complicates traditional notions of the female gaze, developing instead a queer gaze that challenges prevailing phonocentrist norms in Caribbean culture. By immersing viewers in a transformative auditory experience and an affective filmmaking process revisiting historical cinematic representations of Santiago de Cuba, Muñoz Barroso sheds light on the intricate intersections of identity, race, and disability in Caribbean society, offering a profound critique of ableism.