ar2com

If not …
We wouldn’t have any favela.
We wouldn’t have any cultural production from the favela.

It is an ironic shortfilm on cocaine and Rio’s urbanism. You know “she don’t lie, she don’t lie … cocaine” (J.J. Cale in 1975) On wikipedia you get more information on the song ‘cocaine’.

idea and production by dd.r and julakim.
postproduction and music by julakim.
The format is wmv because of 16:9, somehow this was difficult to achieve. So check for yourselfes while watching it. If you encounter problems you can download the media player for mac or flip4mac. Please tell me if this works fine for you, since I think the quality is better with .wmv than with .m4v and even smaller.

Remark from Bolivia:
Bolivia’s new president Evo Morales (a former coca farmer) plans to use government aid to promote the sale of coca products.
“Coca sí, Cocaína no” — yes to coca, no to cocaine — was one of Morales’ campaign slogans.
The coca plant is a basis for living. With his new program he aims to disassociate the plant that provides the substance used to make cocaine from the drug stigma. In the Andes, the coca plant is ‘only’ a medicine and this already for thousands of years (the use goes back to the Incas).
With community control the coca farmers are trying to avoid misuse of their holy plant. I think it is a good idea to make a clean self-control, but also I believe that cocaine makes some people very rich and they will always find their way around.
They even want Coca-Cola Company to change their name.

Some background information on the case, you can find here: Bolivia Coca Trade (BOLCOCA)

Related Posts on Drugs
Dreams and Results, I am interviewing VivaRio’s executive director about their program in a favela.
personal message, I am talking about the 2 districts Lapa and Santa Teresa in Rio de Janeiro.

It shouldn’t be that way, no?
Sorry, that I changed my program, but this message this morning just made me wonder and I had to make a post on this.

‘Tropa de Elite’ was released in Sept./Oct. 2007 at the ‘Festival do Rio’ where it initiated the discussion on piracy. Pavement vendors had sold DVDs before the official release. Them, too, wanted to get some money out of it. And the hard-sell of this film – which is based novel effects and violence – worked out well too much so these vendors at that managed to sell old violent films as ‘Tropa de Elite II to V’.

In Rio people loved the film as a kid of ‘Cidade de Deus/City of God’ or hated it because of talking of these taboo issues. This was the best publicity for the film.
I’ve seen kids on the street playing, reciting/quoting dialogues from the film, rehearsing scenes of tropa de elite. Didn’t the message hit us bad enough? Haven’t we still not understood the danger of these kind of films?

These films are romanticizing the drug problem in megacities. Violence seems to be the export hit from Rio. I don’t believe in the fact that we need to see that violence in the movies to come to know the problem. This is pure gaping at inhuman conditions and of course making huge profit out of it.

We already know that:
“… in the first nine months of 2006 in Rio de Janeiro police killed 807 people …” and
” … The poorest communities bore the brunt of the tens of thousands of gun-related deaths.”
amnesty international.

“People of a Rio slum fear that the police killing of a drug boss will bring more grief”
guardian from uk.

“Interrogation is quite easy to do:
Beat the slum-dweller; whip him black and blue.
Interrogation is quite easy to end:
Beat the scum criminal; whip him till he’s dead.

Lines sung by BOPE – Portuguese initials of the Special Operations Battalion of Rio de Janeiro’s Military Police – during their daily duties.”
Rede Social

“Between December of 1987 and November 2001, violent death claimed 3,937 Cariocas, or local residents, under 18 years of age. By comparison, during the same period, 467 minors died in and around the West Bank between Jordan and Israel, which is considered a war zone by the international community.”
‘Drug Lords and Young Soldiers‘ by Sam Logan
And this is just a quick research on English sites.

So, is it really true that the Berlin International Film Festival, a German cultural institution, awards it with a Golden Bear?
I still haven’t found anything on their motivation to award this film, but I found it very hard to convince me that this film needs it and that we need this film.

Some background information:
‘Tropa de Elite‘ and ‘BOPE‘ on wikipedia. Have a look at the BOPE’s logo. I don’t believe that a good way to prevent violence.

The trailer in Portuguese:

“A Cowparade #233; o maior evento de arte de rua no mundo”
Another view of the public space in Rio de Janeiro.

with participation of
Ophélie Dorgans
Christian Tölle
Marcella Maria

Is this Art? from julakim on Vimeo.