It's become a Brazilian cliché: "Imagina na Copa!" Just imagine during the World Cup. It's a common complaint about many problems in Brazil, particularly in big cities, predicting an unhappy future for the country's mega-events. Overcrowded airports? Imagina na Copa! A spate of muggings in São Paulo? Imagina na Copa! A series of road signs with English misspellings in Rio? Imagina na Copa!
The saying was popularized further by a series of comedy videos that came out last year, and is the title of a new song by a popular sertanejo duo. But a new organization by the same name is seeking to turn the pessimistic expression on its head. I spoke to Mariana Campanatti, one of the group's founders, about what Imagina na Copa hopes to achieve.
Imagina na Copa was started by four Brazilians in their late 20s living in São Paulo. The two paulistas, mineira, and carioca were working at corporate jobs, and wanted to do something different, focusing on social good projects. "It's easy for people to complain," Campanatti explained. "Why don't we stop complaining and do something?" A lot of Brazilians of her generation also want to get involved in social good, said Campanatti, but sometimes things get in the way. "Between the intention and the action, there's a barrier. People have a lot of trouble seeing themselves as an agent of change." So Campanatti and the Imagina na Copa team decided to share stories about ordinary Brazilians working on social good projects to show how easy it can be to get involved, without necessarily needing a "noble" cause or a lot of money.
So each of the four quit their jobs and "threw themselves out into the world." In September 2012, they launched the project on Catarse, a crowdfunding site similar to Kickstarter, and raised R$25,000 to start the organization. They officially launched the site on January 3.
Imagina da Copa has three main areas. First, it launches a story each week describing an organization or social entrepreneur in Brazil, complete with a video, photos, and a blog post. "We want to show that any person have a role in social change, whether it's in their neighborhood or in society," said Campanatti. The organization looks at a variety causes and entrepreneurs so that others can relate to them.
Each week, Imagina na Copa has featured some truly incredible entrepreneurs. There's Alessandra Orofino of Meu Rio, a successful organization to get young people involved in public policy in Rio; Monique Evelle, who started the Salvador-based organization Desabafo Social at the age of 16, starting out by explaining human rights by sitting down with kids in public spaces; Augusto Leal, who started the Bibliocicleta, the traveling community Bike-Library in Bahia; and artist/activist Thiago Mundano of Pimp My Carroça in São Paulo, among others.
The second area of the organization is holding workshops. Often, people interested in social good don't know where to start and feel overwhelmed by the number of causes. Through the workshops, Imagina na Copa helps participants figure out which cause speaks to them--the kind that "gets them out of bed in the morning"--and then teaches them how to turn their interest into a project. They've held five of these workshops in cities across the country, some of which have already turned out social good projects.
The third area is launching a monthly "mission." Since Imagina na Copa began, it has launched campaigns to crowdsource signage and bus line information at bus stops in cities, to donate books in a pay-it-forward style, and to separate recyclables in green bags. "Everyone doing a small thing can generate a bigger change," Campanatti told me.
To get the word out, Imagina na Copa largely relies on social networks, especially Facebook. "We only exist because of social media," Campanatti said. It's also a way for the group to connect people interested in similar causes, and to reach Brazilians across the country. However, since the four co-founders travel a great deal to meet with social entrepreneurs and feature their stories, they decided to start a network of "captains," or local leaders. They recruited 40 young people (the average age is 22) from 20 cities, and trained them last month in São Paulo. Now, this group will be able to organize their own workshops, launch missions, and suggest stories.
Like other non-profits, Imagina na Copa is constantly seeking funding. The four co-founders don't have salaries and are living off personal savings. Aside from crowdfunding, they managed to get sponsorship from Instituto Asas. They also have partners who donate space and services, and Folha de São Paulo syndicates their weekly story. They're relaunching another crowdfunding drive starting June 12, which marks a year before the World Cup begins.
Despite their early successes, the co-founders plan to end the project in its current form when the World Cup begins. Putting a deadline on something helps motivate people, explained Campanatti, giving a more tangible sense for getting things done. When 2014 comes, the group plans to assess the project and publish a report, and figure out another way to continue their work. After leaving careers in places like ad agencies and banks, working on social good is "a path of no return," said Campanatti.
Though Rio's favelas have long been a symbol of poverty and their people considered outsiders by the city's wealthier residents, favela culture is slowly gaining inroads in Rio and even Brazilian culture. For a long time, funk parties were the exception, sometimes drawing middle- and upper-class partygoers to the favelas. But funk was still seen by many as an inferior musical genre, something belonging to the city's poor. Favela residents would often fear revealing their home address to potential employers, and some still do. For a long time, there was a stigma attached to living in a favela.
But to some extent, that's changing. Salve Jorge, a popular Globo novela that just ended, prominently featured characters from Rio's Complexo de Alemão favela, including real people like Renê Silva. Esquenta, a Globo program which often features culture and residents from favelas, recently brought on children from a Rio favela to the show. The host, Regina Casé, asked them which communities they were from. "Maybe only two years ago, the idea of asking someone what favela they were from, on national television, was unthinkable," writes Rio Real blog's Julia Michaels.
And now, a full-length documentary called "Batalha do Passinho" or "Battle of the Passinho," hits Brazilian theaters next month. It details the makings of a cultural movement born in Rio's favelas, featuring young people who developed a new dance form set to funk music. I spoke to Emílio Domingos, director of the film, about the movie and the passinho.
The passinho, or little step, is a combination of dances like break dancing and pop-and-lock, along with traditional Brazilian dances like samba and frevo. It's almost always improvised, and like break dancing, involves dancers facing off against one another. Started in 2011, a competition called Batalha do Passinho seeks to find the best passinho dancer. "When I saw a boy do frevo to funk [music], incorporating elements from capoeira, I was sure there was a cultural revolution going on," Julio Ludemir, the creator of the competition, toldFolha. The competition is different from funk parties, late-night affairs sometimes attended by heavily armed drug traffickers. The event attracts families and dancers alike, and the show is now sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Coca Cola, among other entities. In the final round, 16 dancers go up against each other for 45 seconds. The final of the most recent competition was broadcast one of Brazil's most watched weekend programs on Globo. The winner, a 16-year old from Nova Iguaçu, won R$20,000, which he said he would use to take a class and help his mom.
Domingos, who earned a degree in social sciences from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, has worked for a long time with funk culture in Rio. For over a decade, he was a DJ for a funk party featuring international and Brazilian hip hop and "black music," and has worked on research for documentaries since 1997. He made his first film in 2000, looking at Rio's hip hop scene, and has made a total of 11 movies, several about funk music and culture. He also directs music videos, and works as a researcher on Esquenta. His latest film project is directing a film about the Vasco da Gama soccer team, slated for release later this year.
"Batalha do Passinho" came about when Domingos was asked to be a judge at the competition. He'd seen the dance on Youtube beginning in 2008, but hadn't been to the competition. "I was really impressed with their movement, because it was fast and sophisticated," said Domingos. But he wanted to learn more about the dancers, and decided to make a short film. He ended up with a full-length documentary.
Domingos wants to bring the passinho to a larger audience. "The culture of the passinho is an expansive thing that brings together youth from different places, who often live far away from each other," said the director. It's not just a style of dance, but is also evidence of growing digital inclusion in favelas and a chance for social mobility. "They created a strategy to disseminate the passinho," explained Domingos. "Youtube is essential for them." Using the online video site, dancers not only developed an audience in Brazil and beyond, but used it as a place for debating, discussing, and learning the dance. The dancers tend to use basic technology, such as cell phone cameras and point-and-shoot cameras. The internet is so important for spreading the dance, said Domingos, that some who qualify for the competition had never been to a dance or performance before, learning the steps entirely online.
Changing one's reality is also important to dancers. Many of the young men work and do the dance as a hobby, hoping to turn it into a full-time source of income. "The big challenge is to transform this visibility into financial recognition...it's difficult," said Domingos. Some dancers say they spurned selling drugs in order to dedicate themselves to the dance.
The other goal of the film is to change people's minds about funk and those who are part of the culture. Domingos explained that some are prejudiced against not only those who live in favelas, but funk music itself. One of the first things that happens when police pacify a favela is to ban funk parties. Despite the popularity of passinho videos online, comments reveal how some people view the dance and music. "I never really understood the criminalization that people attribute to funk," said Domingos. "It's a story of what's happening."
The passinho competition and the movie have had success in changing people's minds. "A part of society is quite surprised by the passinho, with its sophistication," said Domingos. He always brings those featured in the movie to screenings so audience members can meet them. "[The dancers] are
conscious of the artistic power of the passinho," Domingos said.
However, the reality of Rio's favelas is a part of the story, too. One of the young men Domingos featured in the film was murdered last year, likely by security guards. Domingos says he was an icon who developed his own style, and was called the "King of the Passinho." Though he worked in manual labor at night, he was starting to get paid opportunities to dance. The movie is something of an homage to him, Domingos noted.
Alessandra Orofino is one of those people who identifies a problem and immediately starts planning possible solutions. She's an organizer, which is complicated in the digital age given the speed with which you can connect to a huge audience, but also given the ease of clicking "like" on Facebook can limit people's willingness to do much else. By using web and mobile technology, Orofino is not only helping organize Cariocas, but is helping change the way Cariocas interact with and influence public policy. And she's only 23.
I spoke to the co-founder and executive director of the Meu Rio organization, and she told me about how it all began and her goals for changing how Cariocas influence decision-making in Rio.
The Origins of Meu Rio
Orofino's big idea came from her different experiences abroad and at home. She grew up in Rio, and lived in Montreal for part of her adolescence. She got a scholarship to study political science in Paris, but after a year at a training ground for French public officials, she decided to go back to Rio. In Brazil, she began working for Promundo, an advocacy group against gender-based violence and violence against children. There, she gained experience in campaigning.
After that, she went India to work on gender-based violence research. In New Delhi, she worked with a local NGO and interviewed victims of violence.
“I knew that I wanted to work with organizing because one of the things
that were most striking to me in India was that every one of the girls I
talked to felt so lonely,” Orofino said. Through her experience, she knew there was a community of people with the power to change things, while there was a lack of public policy action happening. She wanted to organize, but couldn't do that in a research role.
Her next step was to go to Columbia, where she got a scholarship to study economics. But before she left, she had an important conversation with a high school friend, Miguel Lago. It was in 2008, right after Fernando Gabeira had lost the Rio mayoral election to Eduardo Paes. Gabeira had a really interesting campaign, said Orofino, that
was “pretty bold” in its premise and execution; he lost by a small margin. A
group of young people were engaged in his campaign, but felt frustrated after the election, almost wanting the city not to work and "for
everything to go to hell." Lago and Orofino discussed the fact that the energy of these young people wasn’t being channeled toward the good of the city to build something positive. They talked about how to organize people in Rio to become "a real power toward accountability, transparency, and
participation in government, regardless of who was in power," explained Orofino. They wanted to create a voice for the city that wasn't subject to the electoral cycle.
So Orofino got to work, examining organizing efforts work in other parts of the world. She discovered Get Up, the biggest political movement in Australia that uses new and innovative tools to organize people. Jeremy Heimans, the founder of Get Up, was moving to NYC to start a new organization called Purpose just as Orofino was about to start at Columbia. Two weeks after arriving in New York, she knocked on his door, and he hired her. After starting at Purpose, she found the perfect place to incubate an organization in Rio. After working at the organization in New York, she went back to Rio to open Purpose's Brazil office and start fundraising for her own organization. At the end of 2011, Meu Rio was born.
Channeling the Power of Technology to Mobilize Cariocas
Meu Rio is an online platform that allows Cariocas to have a say in what's happening in the city. "We think about our work as translating public policy issues into a
language that is understandable to broader society and young people," said Orofino. The site gives people an opportunity to act on things they think are important, and allows both organizers and users to identify areas for change and action. Meu Rio has a team
dedicated to researching public policy so they can mobilize people
effectively.
There are a number of different components to the organization. First, there are online petitions, on both Meu Rio and on a subsite called Panela de Pressão. This site allows petitioners to email the responsible party directly when they sign a petition. Meu Rio also does video and design work, creating short clips and infographics to explain public policy. The organization also has a blog called Blog de Olho, which serves as a watchdog for the city council. Meu Rio sends a person to cover what's happening there every day; not even the media does that anymore, Orofino points out.
Keeping an eye on the city council has helped inspire campaigns. One, for example, demanded open data from the city council. It gave in, and by July their data should be accessible. Another came out of the state legislature. Meu Rio discovered that a state-level bill had been introduced at the last minute to change the city's environmental codes. It would give the executive the power to choose which projects would go through an environmental licensing process, and which would be exempt. The criteria for deciding which ventures would be exempt would not be released to the public, nor would the bill be discussed with civil society. "It was an open door for corruption," said Orofino. The vote was due to take place the same day, but Meu Rio mobilized quickly and got 7,000 people to sign a petition and several hundred people to call their legislators. Around 150 people showed up to the vote. The legislators got scared and didn't vote, and just days later, the governor killed the bill, saying it was flawed.
Meu Rio uses technology not only to mobilize, but to have a direct impact. Last year, an eight-year-old student wrote to Meu Rio about her school, the Escola Municipal Friedenreich. It has around 300 students, and is one of the best public schools in the country along with specialized staff and facilities for the disabled. The city had decided to demolish the school to build a parking lot for the nearby Maracanã Stadium. There was no plan to rebuild the school or transfer the students, and the parents only found out through the local news.
So the organization set up a campaign to save the school and got 20,000 signatures on a petition. The campaign started attracting media attention, but even the secretary of education--who Meu Rio met with--didn't know what to do. So Meu Rio decided to try a new tactic. They set up a webcam at an apartment across the street from the school, and monitored the school 24/7 through a website with a live feed from the camera. People could sign up to be a "guardian" of the school and watch the feed, and if bulldozers showed up, those watching could press a red button to contact Meu Rio, which would send out text messages to followers in order to physically protect the school. Around 3,000 people signed up to watch the school, and using analytics, Meu Rio discovered that for the two months of the campaign, not a minute passed that someone wasn't watching the school. Public officials realized it would be a PR disaster to demolish the school, said Orofino, and gave
up. The school will stay through 2013, and should it be demolished, a new school will be built in the same neighborhood.
Building a Movement: Next Steps
Meu Rio is working on three different objectives, aside from their mission. First, they're trying to grow their membership base. Any time someone takes an action on the website--be it signing a petition or signing up for an event--they have to register with their email address. After only a year and a half of existence, Meu Rio has 100,000 members who have
acted on at least one campaign. Around 80,00 have acted on more than one
campaign, and about half are ages 20-29.
The next step is fundraising. Orofino participated in initial fundraising rounds from around 80 individuals and a few local foundations. But it's not easy to be a non-profit in Brazil without receiving funding from government agencies or public companies. Since Meu Rio doesn't want to compromise its work, it can't receive money from the government or political parties. Now, it's trying to diversify its sources of funding, and started a campaign in April to allow people to give in smaller amounts online and to give monthly donations. Around 350 people signed up to give monthly, and Orofino wants to get to 1,000 this year. The goal is to be completely member-funded within three years, she explained.
The last step is becoming a completely independent organization. Meu Rio was incubated by Purpose, which is still an incubation partner and is technically the employer for some staff members.
Orofino's Rio de Janeiro
I asked Orofino about a worthy issue in Rio that doesn't get a lot of attention. Sanitation, she explained, is an invisible problem and a "perfect failure." Fifty percent of Cariocas lack sanitation, be it safe piped water or a connection to the sanitation system. Not only is it a public health risk, but an environmental risk for the whole city, Orofino pointed out, given that sewage ends up in the ocean or in someone's backyard. Since pipes run underground, it doesn't create electoral capital, since no one will see it. It's not as visible as other public projects, and it's not a terribly sexy issue.
Meu Rio has a campaign to change how CEDAE, the city's water and sanitation company, works. Its president, who has been there for a long time, has unchecked powers, since CEDAE isn't regulated by other government agencies. This allows the president to make major decisions, like changing the price of water or making changes to the sanitation system without any regulation or consultation. Meu Rio's campaign is still ongoing.
On the other hand, I asked her why people should be excited about Rio. For Cariocas, she said, "there’s a tremendous window of opportunity
that is open now and will close soon." With lots of investment and attention, "Rio has the timing, resources, and momentum to tackle its historical challenges," she noted.
The eyes of the world watching, too, she said. Since that's not always the case, Cariocas should use that to improve sanitation,
education, urban mobility, and other obstacles to development.
For foreigners, Rio provides an "amazing laboratory," said Orofino. It's a city of contrasts that can remind one of Paris in one neighborhood or Nairobi in another. "What happens in Rio is relevant to the developed
and developing worlds," she explained. Seeing what's happening in innovation
and startups could be useful for people to implement all over the world. Plus, Rio is an easy city to feel at home in. "Rio has the willingness to lend its identity to whoever lands here," Orofino told me.
Finally, I asked about what will happen when the mega-events end. For Meu Rio, the work won’t change. "The most important thing will be to make
sure that after the party is over, the people who are here are able to
keep participating in the life of their city," Orofino said. "We talk about
the infrastructure and social legacy of the Olympics, but not enough about democratic legacy. What does it do for democracy and participation? If we
use those opportunities to create a culture of accountability and
participation, that’s something that can then live on long after this
window of opportunity is gone."
Earlier this month, I reported on Brazil's tomato crisis, with prices of tomatoes and other vegetables rising. Soon after, the international press also began covering this issue (see Beyond Brics, FT, Bloomberg, AP, NPR, and Quartz). There were even reports in the Brazilian press of tomato smuggling across the Argentine border. One of Brazil's most popular TV personalities, Ana Maria Braga, wore a "tomato necklace" on TV and joked she was wearing gold. This weekend, two of Brazil's largest weekly magazines put tomatoes on the front cover. Much of the coverage, both domestic and international, focuses on the threat of inflation, and what rising inflation could mean for next year's presidential election. There's also the issue of consumption. Valor reported last week that due to rising food prices, supermarket sales fell 2.1 percent in February, though families spent 9.3 percent more than in February 2012. In the last week or so, tomato prices have started to go down, though prices of other vegetables--namely onions and potatoes--increased by 15 and 25 percent, respectively. Onions, too, are being smuggled across the Argentine and Paraguayan borders.
To determine what is really going on with food inflation, I talked to São Paulo-based economist Luciano Sobral, also known as the Drunkeynesian, to get his views on whether this a long-term trend, a short-term problem, or a symptom of other economic forces at play.
Tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables and food products have risen
over the last year. There are climatic reasons (drought, rains) and
agricultural reasons (less area planted), but what are the bigger
economic forces at play?
I
don’t think there are other bigger economic forces acting here, since
demand for those items is pretty much stable. As you mentioned, there
was a supply shock caused mainly by climatic reasons (heavy rains in the
Southeast, a severe drought in the Northeast), and since arbitrage is
not possible for several products (there’s no international market, at
least not a liquid one where players can hedge or speculate), prices
skyrocketed. Curiously, the prices of exchange listed agricultural
commodities have been falling consistently since last September, so if
there’s any external factor in foodstuff items it should lead to lower
domestic prices.
How is food inflation going to affect inflation overall? The economy overall?
Of
course the first effect is a spike in headline inflation. The infamous
tomato story caused a frenzy on local media (two of the largest weekly
magazines in Brazil are currently running cover stories about inflation
and food prices), and called attention to a deeper, more structural
problem: headline inflation is so sensitive to food prices because
ex-food inflation has been quite high. Service prices are rising more
than 10 percent per year. There’s a huge adjustment in relative prices going
on, and it’s not favourable to capital or investments. Thus the
conundrum: the current situation is very desirable politically (low
unemployment and real wages rising), but it doesn’t seem sustainable,
since overall profit margins look already quite weak and don’t attract
new private investments. Dilma has the political incentives to postpone
an adjustment until after next year’s elections, but, as a long term
growth strategy, Brazil cannot rely only on state-lead,
profit-insensitive capital investment.
Do you think food-driven inflation will continue into next year? Or is this a short-term issue?
I
don’t see a major global uptrend in food prices, so I’d bet this is a
short-term issue. Shocks related to climate are pretty much random,
impossible to forecast. What’s been more or less established is that
they tend to dissipate quite quickly, as soon as the climate turns favorable
or higher prices attract new producers or importers to the market. An
example: tomato prices hit R$12/kg a couple of weeks ago; this weekend I
bought beautiful tomatoes at a supermarket for less than R$4/kg.
What does the price spike of certain foods reveal about the Brazilian economy?
Despite
all the progress of recent years, Brazil remains a (somewhat) poor and
(very) unequal country. The substantial weight of food prices in the
average consumption basket (and, consequently, in price indexes) is an
evidence of that: everytime certain food prices rise, there’s a national
concern. This is similar to what happens with tortilla prices in Mexico
or rice prices in some poor Asian nations. Another interesting aspect is
the dependence of Brazilian food markets on local producers, since
importing is not a viable emergency solution (think of taxes, red tape,
complicated logistics). This tends to make supply shocks more frequent
and persistent. Finally, it shows the old obsession of the country with
inflation, as if it were part of our collective conscience, and how
there’s little space in current inflation to accommodate shocks within
the established inflation target range (2.5 percent to 6.5 percent, with a center of
4.5 percent). Brazil indeed has an inflation problem, although I don’t think
it’s as dramatic as the media and some economists are painting it; only
it serves as an important alert to more complicated structural issues.
It's clear why Renê Silva and Daiene Mendes were chosen for the program. Renê is a textbook wunderkind. At the tender age of 11, he was inspired by a school project to begin a newspaper in his community in Complexo do Alemão, given the lack of local news available there. He began writing articles and printing 100 monthly copies, eventually managing to get paid advertisments. Within five years, he was already printing several thousand copies a month. Later on, Renê launched the Voz da Comunidade website and stopped the print version. The website, now known as Voz das Comunidades, covers not only Complexo do Alemão, but also Rocinha, Santa Marta, Vigário Geral, Vila Cruzeiro, and Maré. Now 19, Renê plans to start the print edition again in April with 5,000 copies and eventually expand to 10,000.
Though he gradually gained local fame through Voz da Comunidade, it wasn't until 2010 that Renê gained national and even international recognition. When the government sent in pacifying troops to Complexo do Alemão, Renê live tweeted the events, gaining nearly 20,000 followers on the Voz da Comunidade Twitter account practically overnight. Renê attracted some high-profile fans, including TV personalities Regina Casé and Luciano Huck. He served as a consultant for Malhação, a Brazilian novela, and worked for Casé as a consultant and writer for her show. More recently, Renê got an even bigger gig: famed novela writer Glória Perez decided to put him on her newest novela, Salve Jorge, and to feature Voz da Comunidade on the show as well. Renê plans to go to college to study journalism later this year.
Daiene, age 23, is in college studying communications. Along with a day job, she also works as a volunteer journalist for Voz da Comunidade. Daiene lives near Renê, and he invited her to participate in a Voz da Comunidade event last year. Since then, she's been writing the culture column for the publication. Like Renê, she's incredibly well spoken and constantly connected to social media.
The Power of Social Media
Renê now has over 50,000 followers on his personal Twitter account and nearly 8,000 followers on Facebook. Voz da Comunidade has even more, with almost 115,000 Twitter followers. "The power of social media is infinite," Renê said. "A publication can
generate a lot of noise in the media and the story can go all the way up
to the government."
Renê tweets about everything in Alemão, ranging from events and local
organizations to social problems--including problems happening in real
time. "I think the Internet is breaking a lot of barriers," Renê told me. With just Twitter and email, for example, he can talk to someone like Luciano Huck every day.
The Future of Voz da Comunidade
Even when Renê finishes college, he wants to continue with Voz da Comunidade, which has become a source of tips for the mainstream media when it comes to what's happening at the local level in favela communities. Articles from the site sometimes lead to similar stories in large newspapers and TV stations, Daiene explained.
When I asked Renê what he hopes for the future of the organization, he was pragmatic: "I can't hope," he said. "I have to act." He wants to expand the publication to other communities with local correspondents. The Voz da Comunidade team also plans to start a new tourism project. "It's not they type of tourism 'para inglês ver,'" explained Daiene. They aim to create customized tours based on interests, ranging from public health to culture. As a registered tour guide, Daiene is working with Renê to put the project together.
Views on Pacification
Renê and Daiene showed mixed feelings about the UPPs. Renê explained that a lot of young people feel that "it's not exactly pacification; it's a process of occupation." Pacification is coming slowly. "We lived for years under a parallel power...it's a new way of life. Young people haven't adapted yet," he said.
Daiene agreed, saying the UPPs don't represent a magic bullet solution to get rid of drug trafficking. There are many other things that need to be done and the process isn't complete, she noted. "I think UPPs create a false sense of peace," Daiene said.
One of the issues for youth is dealing with police. Attracting the attention of officers can be random, and the way one dresses can affect how one is treated, they explained. An acquaintance of Renê's was recently arrested and imprisoned for two weeks after police thought he was part of a group of criminals. His crime? He had been eating lunch in bar where the criminals had allegedly been, and he was accused of being one of the group.
Daiene admitted, though, that without pacification, Voz da Comunidade wouldn't have gained the foothold it has, nor would the publication have garnered the attention of the public. Things the government had promised but never delivered finally arrived in the community. "This wasn't real before the occupation. Now it is," she said.
The New York Experience
The pair came to New York to learn not only about journalism, but also about local culture, black history, and civil rights issues in New York. Renê had already traveled to London to carry the Olympic torch, while it was Daiene's first time on an airplane. During the visit, they chronicled their travels on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube, sharing impressions of their meetings with peers in New York, visiting The New York Times, and filming their first Times Square experience. New York-based organization Brotherhood-Sister Sol played host to the pair, who also had a chance to spend time with their American counterparts who traveled to Rio in January.
They noted that the relationship between communities and police is similar in New York, particularly with stop-and-frisk. But some of the Americans they met tended to have a romantic vision of Rio, and were surprised to learn about some of the problems in the city. Similarly, Daiene said she had a different vision of New York, and saw that there were problems there, too.
Learning about some of the issues faced by peers in New York, both Renê and Daiene realized they were dealing with similar challenges, but may not have even noticed it. Renê realized that people
in his community suffered with how police treat favela residents. "It's right in our
face, and we don't even notice. We live there and we're used to it," he said. Coming to this conclusion inspired both to do something more. "We need to mobilize to tackle our problems," Daiene said. "What I learned from activists here is that I have to position myself...and act accordingly in a mature way."
Renê also put what he learned into a larger perspective. When it comes to low-income communities, he said, "We suffer as much as Americans do. These are global problems--not just from Brazil or the United States."
Reflecting a number of changing realities in Brazil, one of the country's largest newspapers is looking to expand readership of its international section, with Brazilian news stories translated into English and Spanish. Increasingly, more and more Brazilian news is appearing in the international media, along with new English-language Brazil news sources. With the economy humming along--if not growing at previous rates--and large numbers of skilled jobs that need filling, Spanish and Portuguese professionals are flocking to Brazil. María Martín is the embodiment of these trends. Born in Alicante, this Spanish journalist now works as an editor at Folha Internacional, which was launched in July 2011. She moved to São Paulo from Madrid just a year ago, and chooses, translates, and edits web content for Folha Internacional. With native English and Spanish speakers on staff, Folha aims to reach an international audience interested in what's happening in Brazil. I asked María about Folha Internacional via email, along with her move to Brazil.
You've worked as a journalist in Spain. What brought you to Brazil?
Since I graduated five years ago, I have practiced journalism. I was trained at El País newspaper and I got hooked on the profession. Unfortunately, the situation in Spain is not conducive to most people's professional expectations right now, and in this business, much less. Why Brazil? For some time, the news about the “economic giant of Latin America” reached Europe and I was interested in coming here, but I had no idea how I was going to make a living. It was tough: I did not speak a word of Portuguese and I didn't know anything about the culture. But I've always had the support of my sister, who I live with, and Brazilians are very welcoming.
Who is the intended readership for Folha International? Is all of the content translated from Portuguese, or do you have original pieces written specifically for Folha Internacional?
Our audience is the reader anywhere in the world with any interest in Brazil. Each day, we select the most important or interesting issues published by the newspaper and offer their translations for free. We still do not have articles written specifically for Folha Internacional, but it is an option that we haven't ruled out.
What's Folha's goal in launching these two sites?
The goal is not to limit, as a matter of language, the content of Folha, the most influential newspaper in Brazil. In general, sporting events, the economy, culture, and football are catching everyone's eye. Although the international media is responsible for informing their readers, Folha has more structure that allows it to publish great scoops, and has local journalists covering the information. The subjects are also chosen taking the reader into consideration, and edited for some specific references that can be understood by anyone who does not know the local terminology.
What advantages does Folha have over other English-language news sources that cover Brazil?
The foreign correspondent always has a different view than the local media and one that is more interesting to his readers--that is undeniable--but his infrastructure is limited: only one person covering a country of 190 million people. Folha is the largest newspaper in Brazil and covers many topics exclusively and invests a lot of work in original approaches. Also, the Folha Internacional site has free and unlimited access, while the most other online content out there is under a paywall system.
Kleber Mendonça Filho is the kind of writer who believes you should write what you know. His latest film "Neighboring Sounds," which he wrote and directed, takes place in his hometown of Recife, and most was shot on his block and even in his own home. But he's also a fan of horror movies and science fiction. He's made short films of both genres, from "A menina do algodão" (2002), based on a local legend, to "Recife Frio" (2009), a fantastic mockumentary about a cold spell that takes over the northern Brazilian city. He's one of the most exciting directors in Brazil at the moment, one who's changing the course of Brazilian cinema.
I interviewed Mendonça in Recife by phone after meeting him briefly in New York, where he came to promote his new movie and accept the award for best film of the year from Cinema Tropical. "Neighboring Sounds" has won accolades the world over, including being named one of the best movies of 2012 by The New York Times. A movie programmer in Recife and a former movie critic, Mendonça told me he wanted to make a film that he would like to watch. From the perspective of a viewer, Mendonça wanted to focus on what he calls "small-scale incidents," the day-to-day occurrences that make up daily life. "I've never been involved in shootouts, and I don't carry guns," he said. "My life is interesting enough." The movie focuses largely on the daily lives of middle- and upper-class families living in Recife, and their relationships with their working-class employees.
The Middle Class as a Protagonist
Mendonça noted that Brazil's middle class is not normally part of Brazilian cinema. At a January screening of the director's short films at New York's Museum of the Moving Image, he explained there's now a "huge discussion going on" since the new movie showed an intimacy with this group. The film also zeroes in on class tensions, which Mendonça said are part of Brazilian society and "make Brazilians tic." "For me, it's obvious because it's part of our lives," he said. In several of his films, Mendonça spotlights the maid's room, which can be found in many Brazilian homes and evolved from slave quarters.
For Mendonça, it was natural to focus on the middle class, since that's where he comes from. "That's what I understand," he told me. "I'm familiar with the way people think and behave." He said many people told him how much they identified with situations in the film. "That's what the arts are all about, really; they tell you something about what you understand or something that you feel," he noted. But he was taken aback that people thought the film was original for focusing on this group. "There's nothing revolutionary about this," he said. "It baffles me." He cited a film called "O Invasor" (The Trespasser) that influenced his work, and touches on similar themes. When he saw it a decade ago, he wondered: "Why don't we make films like that?"
Brazil's Frenzy of Consumerism
"Neighboring Sounds," as well as the 2005 short "Eletrodoméstica," were inspired in part by the boom in consumerism after the Real Plan in 1994. Mendonça was first struck by the phenomenon during a family trip to the United States in the early 1990s when he saw Brazilians bringing piles of VCRs, microwaves, and fax machines back to Brazil. He was also struck by an incident involving the winning Brazilian team during the 1994 World Cup in Los Angeles: the players and entourage brought home 17 tons of baggage filled with purchases after their win.
Before inflation was conquered and imports opened up, Brazil had a "strange kind of capitalism that was very similar to life in communism," Mendonça said. "I remember a time when you would go to the supermarket in the morning
and in the afternoon, the prices would have gone up." There were very few choices when it came to buying electronics or cars, but after 1994, he began noticing people "going crazy with consumerism." Even though things have changed since then, Mendonça noted, Brazil still has a developing consumer culture, with new money coming in and a growing C class.
Breaking the Mold of a Domestic Film
With a limited budget, "Neighboring Sounds" has had success because people are discovering the film, which Mendonça admits doesn't usually happen. "It's slowly stepping out of the place where the market says it’s supposed to be and supposed to stay," he said. The film was well-received in Brazil, which isn't always the case. The term filme nacional, or domestic film, could sometimes be spoken as a derogatory term. A recent Carta Capital article declared Brazil a "cultural wasteland," with the exception of "Neighboring Sounds." Mendonça disagreed with this assessment, but noted that this perception of Brazilian films does exist. On Twitter, he's seen people comment on the movie, saying, "Well, it's nacional, but it's actually quite good," or "It's so good that it feels like an Argentine film." The solution, Mendonça believes, is to create more good movies and to expose viewers to different kinds of films. "Cinema is many different voices in the whole world, not only American or Hollywood voices," he said.
Connecting History to the Present
One important element of "Neighboring Sounds" is a clear connection between the past to the present, from showing black and white photos at the beginning to showing crumbling buildings in rural Pernambuco. There's also a mirroring of class relationships from colonial times to the present. At the end of the film, one can't help but wonder how much things have changed. Mendonça, the son of a historian, says he intuitively tries to understand where things come from. "I try not to be nostalgic," he said. Though some people would say the film begins with old pictures, "for me, they're just pictures," Mendonça explained. "That's what we're living now, but in black and white." If you drive 40 kilometers outside of Recife and shoot photos without color, Mendonça told me, you'll get the same images.
The Genre Film Gap
Brazilian genre films aren't taken seriously by critics, Mendonça lamented. There are no Brazilian horror movies, except for Zé do Caixão, and no science fiction; these types of movies are often dismissed as being unrealistic. Mendonça made a choice with "Neighboring Sounds" not to venture into this realm by say, landing a spaceship in the middle of the street. And while it wasn't a horror film, the element of fear was important, and Mendonça created a film that leaves viewers feeling on edge for the entirety of the movie. In the future, Mendonça considers making true genre movies. "I go back to me as a viewer," he said. "It’s basically the kind of thing I would like to see."
