Favela Rising

October 11, 2007 12:41 PM

Favela Rising is a recent documentary exploring the AfroReggae (in Portuguese) movement and the amazing story of one of its founders, Anderson Sa. AfroReggae (MySpace page has music on) was born in the Vigário Geral favela as a way to give the community an alternative to the drug trade and to fight police oppression.

Drawing on Brazil’s rich musical tradition, the organization educates youth in various instruments, particularly drumming, with a wide array of genres—reggae, hip-hop, and the Brazilian genres of samba, carioca funk, and axé. The “educators” that facilitate the workshops are almost entirely drawn from favela communities and AfroReggae veterans. One of the bands to come out of this movement is Banda Afro Reggae. Previously.

posted by otherwordlyglow (8 comments total)

Reggae as an alternative to drugs? huh?
posted by b1tr0t at 12:48 PM on October 11, 2007

Hey now, he said drug trade. Like rapping to avoid slinging and/or getting shot at.

Am I the only one who gets sad when links turn out to be audio and multimedia? I just can't multitask those, and I have too much work to do. Their secrets taunt me.
posted by False Jesii Inc. at 1:01 PM on October 11, 2007

i loved the film when i saw it last year [shameless self-link to my blog entry about it.]. it's not only a great story, but just a beautiful film to watch.
posted by blendor at 2:03 PM on October 11, 2007

I can see it now. Executives of Lilly, Novartis, and Merck out there pounding drums and waving dreads. Yes, let's finally give these delinquents something to do besides the drug trade, most excellent idea!
posted by telstar at 2:34 PM on October 11, 2007

It's not *that* recent. I saw it at least a year ago and I think it was already old when I watched it.

The "Making of" documentary of the documentary is almost more informative/inspiring than the real thing -- especially since you can see all of the positive fallout from the film itself.

The most inspiring bit of the "Making of" is finding out that the goals of the people involved in this project is to promote bottom-up participation. Rather than framing the situation as "look at us poor people here in Brazil who desperately need money and support" it was framed as "let's address the issue of all marginalized urban communities by encouraging them to have a voice and raise themselves up".
posted by Deathalicious at 6:33 PM on October 11, 2007

Fantastic movie - although definitely not hot off the presses - I would also recommend "Life and Debt" on the reggae/social activism front.
posted by specialk420 at 8:18 PM on October 11, 2007

I guess by "recent" I meant within the last few years. My apologies to those whose sense of time differs. It was shown at some film fests in 2005 and released theatrically in 2006.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 10:29 PM on October 11, 2007

theres also a new movie called milagre em candeal with carlinhos brown about his youth project in salvador bahia brasil. Very great movie at least to learn about the afro brasilian culture in my city of residence.

b1trot, afro-reggae is not associated with drug use.
posted by LouieLoco at 2:00 PM on October 12, 2007