Favela documentary update

Eleven months ago, a girl and three boys from Vila Cruzeiro had their first workshop on How To Make A Documentary. Now, almost a year later, they have finished their first own documentary feature: “CRUZEIRO”.

We’ve made a movie!

A 46 minute documentary about the lives, hopes and dreams of Diogo, Dudu, Mayra and Luis and their vision on favela life.

Ever since our wonderful editor Gustavo joined us after the crash of our hard disk, things only went up.

The editing process went much faster than I expected. And without any nasty surprises or difficulties. All credits for that go to Gustavo. I know I’m “suspeito para falar” but he did an excellent job. Gustavo is the kind of editor any director would wish for.

I want to especially mention our soundtrack.  The music for the film was specially made for us by Os Legados, a band from Vila Cruzeiro. The tracks composed by Thiago and Kadu don’t just accompany the story told. They manage to grasp the essence of CRUZEIRO in their fabulous music and lyrics.

So, the finishing touch was adding the director’s voice over and… that was it.

So now what? Pretty soon we’ll have the premiere in Vila Cruzeiro because we want to show the film to the community. And then…the world! Patricia is going back to Amsterdam mid-October for the international promotion of CRUZEIRO. Hopefully the crew will join her soon because this movie is above all the work of Diogo, Dudu, Mayra and Luis.

Without getting over-emotional, I need to thank Diogo, Mayra, Dudu and Luis from the bottom of my heart. By making a documentary about their dreams they helped me realize my own dream. So this is for them:

Meninos, a gente conseguiu! Eu estou superorgulhosa de vocês. Eu tive um sonho e vocês me ajudaram a realizá-lo. Nenhuma “obrigada” é suficiente. Vocês são demais! Eu amei trabalhar com vocês e ver vocês criar suas vidas pelo telão. Não era fácil, mas vocês fizeram. Amo! Vamos mostrar nosso trabalho ao mundo. O único caminho é para frente, né. Parabéns!

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!

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!

The Espaço Ibiss threw a fantastic party to celebrate its 2nd anniversary. On stage at the campo de futebol, the heart of Vila Cruzeiro, was music, dance, theatre, singing and….. a raffle. Diogo climbed the stage as well. Only this time he was filming in stead of acting.

Our crew-shirts are already a popular fashion-item in Vila Cruzeiro. They’re black and golden and everybody wants one. The crew has to wear the shirts when they’re working. We don’t want them to be mistaken for unwanted journalists who are secretly filming inside the community.

Nevertheless, someone asked Mayra: “Are you from Rede Globo?”

Eduardo filming Luis during his dance performance

It took a while but we have finally started. On a Tuesday afternoon in September the whole crew came together at the Espaço Ibiss in Vila Cruzeiro. No ceremonial stuff, we got right to work. In our first workshop cinematographer Don started explaining the basics of filming with a mini-DV camera. Don was one of the founders of Nós do Cinema, an organization which offered courses and job opportunities in films to kids from favelas to raise social consciousness through film. This is exactly what we are doing in Vila Cruzeiro. Don has recently started his own production company called Clandestino Filmes. He still likes to teach young people the art of filmmaking. It’s a pleasure working with him.

These coming weeks will be filled with workshops in filming, scripting and editing. Joost, my friend and colleague from the NOS came all the way from Amsterdam to teach editing. In his own words: ”Making a documentary is fifty percent filming and fifty percent editing.” It’s great to see how fast Mayra, Eduardo, Diogo and Luis pick up on new techniques!

Unfortunately our workshops are sometimes a bit overshadowed by flying bullets. It can happen that we have to duck and wait for the shootings between the police and the tráfico to end. Even though we are safely inside the Espaço Ibiss. You never know where a stray bullet might land. But Joost, Diogo and Eduardo took the opportunity to edit some more. On the floor.

The start of our workshops wasn’t the only highlight this month. Noucky has done a more than excellent job in designing our website. Thanks a million! It looks great and so are you! Also many thanks for Marah for writing the content. The crew misses you and send you tons of beijos. A little sad moment was Joost flying back to Amsterdam. It was great having you and all of your zeros and ones here. Volta logo meu irmão!