We are delighted to hear that Cruzeiro has been selected for the World Film Festival of Bangkok, 6 - 15 November 2009.

More than 80 international films are screened at the festival each year, featuring works from the European Union Film Festival, Latin America, Asia and Southeast Asia and included are short films, experimental films, documentaries and animation productions. You can stay updated on the festival’s website.

Cruzeiro screens Saturday July 18 at the International Black Women’s Film Festival in San Francisco with several feature-length films and shorts made by or featuring black women.

The IBWFF is founded by Adrienne Anderson who was interviewed by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Peter Hartlaub in regards to her film festival. Read it here: SF Chronicle.

Saturday, July 18 | Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library | 100 Larkin St. San Francisco | 12 noon - 3 p.m.

The way we’ve been feeling the last fifteen days can best be described as: desperate. And not in the funny Desperately Seeking Susan-way but in the Oh-My-God-Why-Is-This-Happening-To-Us-Hands-Held-In-The-Air-kind of way. Here’s what happened.
When we started editing we had two external hard disk drives on which we saved our material. Number One for Diogo and Dudu and Number Two for Mayra and Luis. So far so good. Last February, however, Number One decided to go to sleep and never wake up again. Luckily for us, our friend and computerwizard Allan managed to save all the data from Number One and put it on Number Two. Since it was already February and we ran way behind schedule and therefore had to economize on our budget, we decided to take the gamble and continue working with just Number Two. Big Mistake.
Two weeks ago Number Two wanted to be formatted. No matter what we tried or asked or begged of Number Two, it still wanted to be formatted. A Hard Disk Rescue Team was formed, computerbrains in Rio, Holland, Senegal and Colombia were consulted and a macumba was contemplated but still all of our data remains unseen. It’s gone. All our work from the past months down the drain.

We have survived many obstacles. It started with transferring a lot of money to the Belgian cameraman to buy cameras and a ticket to Rio to train the crew but who never showed up nor gave us our money back. Then we had the Kafka-scenario with a Carioca microphone store. Not to mention the crew, each individual as well as as a team, had innumerable personal dificulties, setbacks, mistakes and dissapointments to overcome while shooting the documentary. But we survived all these hurdles. And now this. Does it really have to be this hard? I mean, we are not trying to save the Amazon from deforestation or come up with the plan for peace in the Middle East. We just want to make a 60 minute documentary about the lives, hopes and dreams of four young inhabitants of Vila Cruzeiro.
“Consider the lost material as a pre-edit, it can only get better”, said Patricia’s friend Dana. We try. But it’s hard. We are still mourning the loss of the months of editing on sequences, endless puzzling on keeping or cutting the frame and then getting it just right, almost perfect, with exactly the rhythm you wanted. It hurts that those edits are missing in action.
We don’t know why this happened. We also don’t know how this could have happened. And we definetely have absolutely no more clues on how to solve our problem. But we do know this: even though it happened we are determined to finish what we started. The premiere in July, forget it. We’re guessing mid-October se Deus quiser. We’ll keep you posted. Keep your fingers x-ed, please. We are in desperate (there’s that word again) need of all the help we can get.

Favela Documentary is proud to present our first ‘trailerzinho’!

As you can see we have started editing our 60 minute film. We’re going slowly but steady. We’ve got a new crew member too: Gustavo Gelmini. Gustavo is an experienced editor, cameraman and documentary maker from Rio de Janeiro. He is also co-founder of Midena Works Art and Technology. Gustavo joined us three weeks ago. He picked up where Joost left of a couple of months ago. Whereas Joost taught the crew the basic principles of editing, Gustavo and I are now mixing it all up: using the editing techniques to tell our story on film. It’s an interesting process to see how little by little all the hours of the videotaped lives of Diogo, Mayra, Luiz and Dudu are now being shaped into one story.

We mostly work at Patricia’s home in Botafogo. As for Vila Cruzeiro, it still is awfully tense. In April the BOPE-forces managed to take over the whole favela. Days of long bitter fighting followed and 18 people (according to the Brazilian press) got killed and dozens more wounded. The BOPE even planted a flag on a house in Vila Cruzeiro to state they owned the place now.

The police occupation lasted for about two weeks. Then, suddenly, the BOPE took off in their ‘caveirões’ (the armored black vehicles) and the tráfico took back their positions. Nowadays it is business as usual with - on average - three police invasions every week. It can get pretty nasty and scary sometimes. One minute you’re picking up your grandchild from school, the next you’re dodging bullets and hiding out at Dudu’s pensão.

We couldn’t get much done during the occupation-period as it was hard to get either in or out of the favela. But even if we were all together at the same place at the same time, with the gunfight going on and the electricity plugged of, working on the film was almost impossible to do. The Espaço Ibiss used to be a relatively safe place. Unfortunately this is no longer true. Bullet holes the size of eggs are visible in the roof, walls and doors of the building. It’s heartbreaking to see the Espaço being unsafe for the hundreds of children and youth who come to Ibiss every week as well as for the Ibiss-staff who are trying to make the best of this sometimes desperate situation.

Thankfully, our spirits were totally lifted when we got a huge spread in the biggest selling newspaper of Rio: O Dia. After weeks - what am I saying… years (!!!) of bad press (”War in favela Vila Cruzeiro”) the sunday issue of May 11th headlined: Vila Cruzeiro Dreams. You can check it out here as I leave you with a still from our documentary “Cruzeiro”.

Just a few more days and then the filming is done and the editing will start. The crew is running around like crazy to get the last shots they need for their story. Here are some pictures of Diogo, Luiz and Dudu shooting beautiful overview shots of Vila Cruzeiro in the burning sun

From one hillside looking down to the other

And rolling…..

Although it was relatively calm in Cruzeiro the last couple of days filming outside is not always easy. What to us seems to be the PERFECT spot to unpack the camera and tripod can be exactly the wrong spot according to the tráfico.

Good thing we get a lot of help from the Espaço Ibiss staff, we couldn’t be doing what we are doing without them so THANKS A LOT!

Also the people in Cruzeiro are great. When it’s really hot working in the sun, someone always offers us some nice cool water and a place in the shade to chill.

The woman who is living there is - according to the boys- the best batata frita baker in Cruzeiro. It’s her holding the potato in her hand….

And after a couple of hours of a sunny shoot Diogo and Patricia are very very happy with what they’re doing. We’re just so damn lucky!

We also got very happy when Patricia’s friend, photographer and webdesigner Noucky Koole came to visit us. Noucky built us this website too, remember. She has made tons of wonderful pictures in Vila Cruzeiro and the neighboring Complexo do Alemão.

Noucky wants to bundle her best photographs in a book in order to help young Brazilians. The revenues will go to two projects: Favela Documentary (thank you!) and Sitio Agar, a project which gives support to HIV-positive children. Here’s how you can contribute to this wonderful initiative:

We can’t thank Noucky enough for her spirit, help and enthusiasm for Favela Documentary. The crew thought her amazing when she walked around in Cruzeiro with her camera in hand and a big smile on her face without any fear of traficantes with guns riding around on motorcycles or standing on streetcorners.

We’re off to the final final final days of shooting. “The other shooting”, as Dudu likes to say. Don’t ever think someone looses their sense of humor when bullets fly round in Cruzeiro!

Please check back for more soon!

Favela Documentary was seperated for almost six weeks. The first week of January, half the crew - Mayra and Diogo - traveled to Holland to go on tour with Não Sou Maluco’s spectacle Favela Força. I was already there, waiting for the group to arrive and go on tour with them. The farewell at the airport was filmed by Dudu and Luiz who, unfortunately, had to stay behind in Vila Cruzeiro. But in a way they also joined us: in the videos they helped make for Favela Força.

For Diogo, Mayra and the other actors from Não Sou Maluco, the journey to Holland and Belgium was an enormous experience. In every way: flying, traveling outside of Rio, being without their families, Europe, the cold, touring, snow, foreign languages, strange food, no sun and….peace. “Holland is so quiet”, Mayra says, “I’m used to always having noise around me. But here I don’t hear anything!” And what about the other kind of peace? No gunfight and the security that you can always return home safely.

The best part of the tour were our nights at the theaters. The message in Favela Força is strong in itself: despite preconceptions and violence, favela life is not only a life of misery and many people manage to turn it all into something positive. The same thing we want to express in Favela Documentary. We were very glad that the audience really understood this and that many people were even moved by it as well. All in all, the tour was a big success!

Here are some pictures. Many thanks to Velu and Mundial Productions!

But now it’s back to business! It hasn’t been easy for Luiz and Dudu to continue working without the rest of us. And, even worse, there have been a lot of police raids in Vila Cruzeiro. The crew will be filming until the end of February. That is a little bit longer than I planned, but necessary. After that we’ll start editing which will take some time as well. Please check back soon to see how we’re doing!