Shooting Urban Legions
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The last Clube da Mostra meeting of the 32nd São Paulo International Film Festival debated films about urban communities and had participation of Leandro HBL, director of Favela on Blast, and director Sam Holland and his Brazilian co-editor, Marcelo Vienna, of Zebra Crossings.

Leandro graduated in Communication and Art, in Belo Horizonte, studied Filmmaking in San Antonio de los Baños, in Cuba, then worked in the film department of Fabrica, the languages research center of Benetton, in Italy. His stay in Italy made it easier for him to meet people related to cinema, music, literature and photography from all over the world. One of those personalities was DJ and producer Wesley Pentz, based in Philadelphia, who is better known as DJ Diplo. Friendship led them to think of making some projects together. At that time, Wesley was writing for a New York music magazine, Fader, and he had been asked to write about the carioca funk. Wesley then invited Leandro to fly to Rio to gather some material. During the two weeks they spent in those communities, Leandro saw a universe full of possibilities and he then had the idea of making a series of documentaries to portray what was happening with the culture of the young people who live in the outskirts of the city. His idea was to make an inventory of how the ghetto electronic sound assimilates their cultural roots and reprocesses it, by using as examples four different cities: Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Luanda and New Delhi.

It took three years for the idea to become the documentary Favela on Blast. Leandro says the production was not expensive, though it was wearisome, and that he invested much of his time and money on it. Post-production required more money. Distribution to movie theaters is out of question. During all the process, Leandro realized that the kind of product he made has a wider reach in the internet.

Young English director Sam Holland identified himself with the problem of lack of money. He emphasized that, in England, if the director is not famous or if there are no famous actors and actresses in the cast, no one will be interested in investing in that work. Sam, who studied Filmmaking, used to work in Advertising. At the same time, he began to write scripts. By the time his third script was completed, he thought it was good enough to become a film, and that was Zebra Crossings. It took him seven years from his first scripts version to the films post production. He also used his own money on it. His crew worked almost for free because they wanted to make the film, and according to him the cast also agreed to work on a deal basis.

Communities of young people who live alongside of the society are the theme, and hip hop is the background music of the film. Although in London such communities live in areas of higher social class districts, there is no communication between those two groups, and media does not give them much space for cultural manifestations. Sam said English youngsters are rebellious and use drugs like cocaine more and more, and they also face racial conflicts, and that was the universe he decided to portray. It is a film about people and the end is also very personal, said the director.

Marcelo got acquainted with that universe in the editing room. It was an introduction to London. Material was vast and it was difficult to condense it into the final version of 140 minutes. Besides, working with Sam was a challenge, since the Latin way and the Saxon way to express emotions are so very different. However, at the end, he considered the film came out quite balanced.

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA