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Violence in Rio slums, failed bid to end it, depicted in new movie
RIO DE JANEIRO, July 20, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – In an alley of the only Rio slum
where shootouts are not people’s daily bread, a cop and a drug dealer chat
and joke around.
But then a movie director shouts “action!” and the scene reverberates and
lights up with the gunshots and muzzle flashes of what life in the so-called
favelas is truly like for its residents.
Thus goes the filming of a yet-to-be-titled movie that aims to depict one
of the main dramas of Rio de Janeiro: the failure of a novel plan to bring
peace to the poor, drug-infested and gang-ruled favelas with a new law
enforcement policy that began about a decade ago.
Until then, police rarely ventured into the very dangerous favelas.
But the new approach involved setting up police stations right in the slums
and bringing officers into day to day contact with people so as to have a
better feel for what was going on.
The favela chosen for the movie, Tavares Bastos, now has a headquarters of
special forces of the feared military police overlooking it from a hill.
So there are no daily gun battles here, nor do you see drug traffickers
walking around with assault rifles, nor kids killed by stray bullets, as is
common in other teeming slums in Rio.
“Only in this favela could we film without reaching some kind of agreement
with the drug traffickers or para-police militia. If we did not do it here,
we would have to film everything in a studio,” said the film’s director, Caio
Cobra.
All the trappings of a movie shoot — lights, cameras, and legions of
production people — don’t even bother people in this favela. They are used
to being portrayed in film and on TV.
Cesar Machado, a 66-year-old man living in Tavares Bastos, says that
whenever people talk about the dire state of these communities and their
rampant violence, they never go to what he considers the source: politicians
in the capital Brasilia who neglect the poor.
“They only talk about the final product, which is us,” said Machado as he
left a bakery.
– A touchy debate –
The screenplay was written by Rodrigo Pimentel, a former military police
special forces member, and addresses the collapse of the community policing
units, which had the acronym UPP, or Police Pacification Units.
These were deployed in 2008 amid a wave of optimism and expectation as
Brazil, preparing to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in
2016, wanted to clean up the favelas.
But the special units eventually collapsed, as the government did not make
them a priority or earmark sufficient resources, neither for the units
themselves nor for other promised social and education programs. The units
were also hit by corruption cases.
The movie tells its story through the eyes of police officers.
The main character is a young female police officer who firmly believes in
the community policing project as a way to rid the favelas of violence.
But her dreams are crushed by a city engulfed in economic crisis and
corruption scandals.
“This movie talks about today’s Rio, after all that excitement over the
World Cup and the Olympic Games,” said Pimentel.
“Every day, the newspapers carry stories about favela residents being shot,
about slain police. I thought it was very necessary, urgent even, that
Brazilian cinema tells the story of those people.”
Five police officers acted as advisors to the film team and some even have
small parts in the movie.
“Police are also victims of violence, and their version of events was
almost always treated with disdain, hidden by Brazilian cinema,” Pimentel
told AFP.
Addressing this theme is a delicate task: the state of Rio has a horrifying
murder rate — nearly 6,500 last year — while police lack resources to fight
well-armed organized crime gangs and are paid little.
Police in Rio are the most likely in Brazil to be killed in the line of
duty — but also the ones most commonly involved in deadly shootings.
In 2017, more than 130 officers died on the job, and this year the figure
so far is 60.
Meanwhile, some 1,150 people died in police shootings last year, according
to the state’s Public Security Institute.
So with tensions so high, how will the city react to this movie? The people
behind it insist it will be balanced.
“The movie does not take sides. It is not propaganda-oriented. It exposes
an open wound and lets the viewer decide,” said actor Marcos Palmeira, who
plays the commander of a community policing unit.
“What I want the most is for the movie to trigger debate, that it does not
generate more polarization, more hatred, but rather reflection,” said Bianca
Comparato, who plays the officer in the lead role.
The movie will be released on November 15.
BSS/AFP/MRI/0844 hrs