At age 79, Roberto Freire has difficulty walking, and is half-blinded from torture by the Brazilian military dictatorship, but he continues to develop somatherapy, "completing his life's work." Soma incorporates the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, the politics of anarchism, and the culture of capoeira angola, and it is used by therapists organized in anarchist collectives to fight the psychological effects of authoritarianism. Nick Cooper of Houston Indymedia travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Bahia, and São Paulo to find the exercises, principles, voices, and movement of somatherapy.

Soma: an anarchist therapy, the documentary that Nick made, was screened several times in the Bay Area: on August 11th at ATA in San Francisco, on August 12th at Station 40 in SF, and on August 13th at the Long Haul in Berkeley. It was also shown in Sacramento on August 10th, and then after the trip to SF and the East Bay, Nick headed toward the South Bay and Santa Cruz.

Soma Documentary trailer | Slingshot Article | PDF of Soma Book | Soma Documentary website