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Click here to watch the trailer!
Click here to watch the trailer!
A Global Girl Movie Review:
How I found out about the film Meu Brasil:
To begin my experience at Georgetown, I needed to spend a summer semester researching. Thus, I am here in Rio de Janeiro researching the roles of community leaders in the favelas cariocas to help professor Bryan McCann in his upcoming book. This is a tough and sticky research topic at hand. Two months is a short time to make contacts, establish a trust, and get helpful information. (If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know! 
). However, this tough research topic led me to see an interesting film this week. Meu Brasil is a documentary directed by Daniela Broitman and produced by VideoForum about the story of 33 community leaders who traveled to Porto Alegre in order to take part in the World Social Forum.
Daniela Broitman gave a special filming to a group of students from The New School in New York City who are participating in a class about Human Rights and the Media here in Rio de Janeiro. It showed on Wednesday at a small underground theater Cine Gloria. (Underground literally, it is under the memorial of Getúlio Vargas in Gloria).
The Story/ies of Meu Brasil:
In the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, community leaders fight daily in order to fight for rights and services for their citizens. The leaders confront daily discrimination of all kinds, not to mention pressures from both political leaders and drug traffickers. This film attempts to not only show their struggles, but their motivations for strength to confront and transcend all of these barriers in order to fight for a better world.
Although the film does document the participation of 33 community leaders of carioca communities, it focuses on the lives of three in particular: Gaúcha, Juliana, and Carlos. Daniela Broitman, in the debate after the film, explained that she chose to focus on these three leaders because they represent three types of discrimination: Racial discrimination, sexual discrimination (Juliana’s given name was Julio), and social discrimination.
What Challenges to These Community Leaders Face?
The fime exposes many battles that community leaders face in order to carry out their work, here are some examples.
Lack of Information and Resources:
One leader, on arriving back to Rio de Janeiro after the World Social Forum was so happy just because of the quantity of information that she was able to attain by meeting so many people. Many communities, especially the smaller communities in the Greater Rio de Janeiro further away from the city, still don’t have a lot of access to information or people with who they can network and get help.
Networking:
The film showed the struggles for people to network with one another. The World Social Forum gave a few lectures about the importance of networking, and many of the leaders were really surprised and inspired by the idea of supporting one another. Although, the film does not go into how the problems of distrust not only inter-community but intra-community affect the ability for community leaders to network.
Political Leaders:
One of the best parts of the films was a debate between two community leaders about whether or not they should ally with political parties. Daniela Broitman explains the scene:
“Its a difficult discussion. The leaders themselves with whom I worked with where always on the border between the traffickers and the political parties, almost falling to one side or another. They must stay there on a tight-rope, having a lot of equilibrium in order to not fall. Angela, a community leader says, ‘You mean to say when a politician arrives offering help for a situation in the community, I am not going to accept? What should I do?’ Amongst the leaders themselves there is always this question: What to do in order to be a honest community leader and not accept to be corrupted by political parties? It isn’t something resolved, and it doesn’t have a ready answer, or a manual. Community leaders are always really insecure in relation to this subject.”
(Translated from Portuguese into English from this interview.)
Discrimination:
One of the main discussions in the film is discrimination. Gaúcha explains that she didn’t move from Rio Grande do Sul to Rio de Janeiro because of hunger, or because she was looking for a job, but because of racial discrimination. She goes further into her reasoning by explaining a story that happened to her when she was a little girl. She participated in a singing contest for the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and the winner would go onto São Paulo to compete in a regional signing contest. After Gaúcha sang, she heard a judge talking to the group of judges, “She sings really well, but that little black girl is really ugly, too ugly to represent Rio Grande do Sul in São Paulo.”
Juliana, formerly Julio, is a transvestite who deals with sexual discrimination. She fights for the establishment of a third bathroom.
Carlos fights for social discrimination. He explains that he used to have money, and then he ended up losing most of it. His life changed completely just because he lost the money.
Broitman reaches audiences by focusing on the strengths rather than weaknesses:
This film reveals the challenges that these leaders face, but it does so by showing their strength and passion to keep fighting and go to the World Social Forum in order to learn more about how they can be better leaders.
Carlos, Daniela, Gaúcha
Many times when trying to understand the struggles that people face, people end up focusing only on the struggles. This is especially the case of community leaders in Rio de Janeiro. In the Brazilian media one can find many articles about Presidents of Resident Associations that have been killed or expelled by traffickers. The media generally uses this information to expose the new level of fear violence has brought to Rio de Janeiro, and ignores the fact that this information also shows how many community leaders must be standing up to the drug traffickers.
In my perception, Daniela Broitman goes in the other direction of major media productions and instead focuses on the strengths of these leaders. In my opinion, Daniela ends up exposing a much more visceral understanding of both the courage and struggles that play out in the daily lives of these three community leaders.
Violence?
Violence in the film was not a main focus. Although I believe that it would have been very interesting to get a feel about how the community leaders deal with the pressures of the drug traffickers, I believe it was a choice that Daniela made out of necessity and respect for the community leaders, and out of the choice to move as far away from the glamorized violence image that films like Tropa de Elite and City of God were perpetuating. Broitman explains:
“The more we show violence, the more we teach to do violence…I think to talk the way that is talked in the film [Meu Brasil] makes me much more emotional than to show a lot of people getting shot… [With violent films] there is also the question of adrenaline, of one wanting easy diversion without having to think a lot. These films don’t open up a lot of space for discussions.”
Click here for interview in Portuguese.
“Brasil Saudoso”
I’m going to end this post hoping to parallel, at least a little, the powerful ending of the film with the lyrics of the “theme song” of the film, “Brasil Saudoso.” The last scene is Gaúcha signing this song and becoming so emotional and teary eyed that she tells Daniela that she can’t finish singing the song. It was very powerful and impacting. Some of the lyrics:
“Não posso viver sem você / minh’alma faz tempo eu te dei / Brasil, quem vai embora te deixa, mas sem coração”
Read More:
http://www.videoforum.tv/meubrasil/index_br.html
http://oglobo.globo.com/blogs/docblog/post.asp?t=cinesul_brasil_brasis&cod_Post=61754&a=74
http://www.fazendomedia.com/novas/cultura200607.htm
