Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
It seems like the situation in Vila Cruzeiro is getting worse by the day. Not a day goes by without gunfight between the police and the tráfico. The caveirão - the black armored police vehicle - enters almost every day. In the past when the caveirão entered, people had the time – even if just for a fraction of a minute – to seek refuge. Now, there is no escape. The governor of Rio decided that the caveirão has to fire arms while it is driving into the community without any warning to anyone who’s outside walking. It’s extremely dangerous. Amnesty International is campaigning against the use of the caveirão.
For the community the current situation is deeply sad, terrifying and frustrating. Nobody knows how long this situation will continue. It can be days and it can be months. Luis lives almost right in front of the little square in Vila Cruzeiro where the caveirão often parks for a couple of hours of combat. When that happens, there is no way he can leave his house or even walk around inside his own home for that matter. He hides behind the couch and waits for the shootings to end. Hoping that his family members and friends are safe. Almost heartbreaking is Eduardo’s three-year-old daughter: she can’t stop crying and screaming during a shoot out because she can’t stand the noise of the guns and grenades.
Here is a short clip of the caveirão entering the main road in Vila Cruzeiro seen from the Espaço Ibiss.
This is the day to day reality for the people in Vila Cruzeiro who have nothing to do with this urban war. We think it’s important to show in our documentary in what way this war effects the day to day life. It is really amazing to see that people still have the willpower and strength to keep up their spirits and try to continue their everyday routine. But this is just one of the many things we want to show in the documentary.
Besides our documentary there’s also another way to show the reality: theater.
There is a theater group in Vila Cruzeiro called Eu Não Sou Maluco which I work with as well. It is a group formed by adolescents and young adults between the age of 14 and 26. They act, sing and dance. Eu Não Sou Maluco was my ticket inside the community. When I came to Rio mid-February I still had some serious fund raising to do for the documentary so I couldn’t get started right away. Ibiss had already started the production of a new piece by Eu Não Sou Maluco, called Favela Força. The executive-director of Ibiss, Nanko van Buuren, asked me to work together with the director of Favela Força, Fabiano de Freitas. Fabiano wanted to incorporate video in his piece. They asked me to take care of this part of the production. I agreed immediately because in that way I could get to know Vila Cruzeiro, scout for young talent for my own documentary and be part of a very unique theater production. The bonus of it all is that I’m working with a fantastic group of young performers and with Fabiano who’s an inspiring, original and wonderful director.
Favela Força shows that there is much more to Vila Cruzeiro than drugs, crime and violence. It is a spectacle which mixes capoeira, samba, baile funk, hip-hop and many other favela subcultures with music and video.
I met Mayra and Diogo through Eu Não Sou Maluco, because they are both actors in this group. Luis I met through one of the dancers. Eduardo was still working for the tráfico when I came to work with Eu Não Sou Maluco and I met him a couple of months later. That was right before my fund raising was finally completed and right after the original Belgian cinematographer who was supposed to come to Rio canceled on us a few days before his camera workshops should have started.
Luckily, after a couple of nerve wrecking days, we found Don to replace him. In the end, Don turned out to be a blessing for our project. Not only is he experienced in training young people without any background in filming, but he himself is from the community as well. Don is from the neighboring Favela Da Grota. So he knows exactly what he’s talking about when we have discussions about what is safe and unsafe when filming inside the community. Furthermore, he’s always around if one of the crew members is in desperate need of a quick-fix while filming.
At the moment we’re very busy with both projects. Diogo and Mayra have loads of extra rehearsals during the weekends because Eu Não Sou Maluco goes on tour in January 2008 in the Netherlands. But from Monday to Friday they work on the documentary. In the mornings Eduardo, Diogo and I meet up at the Espaço Ibiss to edit, look at the footage they made and discuss the script. After lunch Mayra and Luis join us when they’ve finished school. Some days we don’t see each other. Could be because I can’t get into Vila Cruzeiro because of a shooting and they can’t leave their homes. Or – and this is not a bad thing - they hook up themselves to film a scene. For instance, Eduardo filmed Diogo during an audition in downtown Rio recently.
I dropped by to bring them another microphone and took a sneak peak to see what they were doing and honestly…. the director felt like a proud mom to see her two boys working together. Imagine the joy I felt when Diogo heard he passed the audition! He got accepted into a musical-ensemble outside the community. We, the whole crew, are all immensely proud of him!
Well, a bundle of work still lies ahead of us. Finishing the script is no easy task and it takes longer than expected. And the fact that the microphone store in Rio has finally admitted (take a deep sigh) that they will never ever deliver what I ordered doesn’t help either. Luckily there’s always a thing called ‘ dar um jeito’. The Brazilian way to solve whatever problem!
