5 X Favela, interview with Carlos Diegues: “In cinema, we make films to get to know each other.”

Photo du film

Invited as a member of the Cinéfondation and Short Film Jury, Brazilian director Carlos Diegues presents the choral film 5 x Favela, por nos mesmos in Special Screening as the film’s producer. In this film, Manaíra Carneiro, Wagner Novais Luciano, Vidigal Cadu Barcellos and Luciana Bezerra–all filmmakers who grew up in the favelas–find their voices, express their feelings and tell their stories.

5 x QUESTIONS FOR CARLOS DIEGUES

In the 1960s, you were part of the emergence of Cinema Novo. Since then, your commitment to Brazilian popular culture has never waned. How can such passion be maintained over the years?

In cinema, we make films to get to know each other, otherwise it’s just not worth it. Of course, my familiarity with the popular culture of my country is a given. This is not my own personal passion, but something that is shared by my generation. 5 x Favela was an opportunity to come to terms with this development, this generation that is still present in Brazilian culture and cinema. From time to time, a crisis occurs that makes us think that Brazilian cinema might disappear, and then suddenly it all starts up again. Right now we’re in a period of great diversity. At the beginning of the 90s, I started giving lectures in the favelas with NGOs and suddenly I saw the birth of a new generation of filmmakers who were shooting with mobile phones and mini DV cameras and I tracked their progress. Seeing their talent, I said to myself that it was time to make a serious feature film with them.

In the workshops leading up to the shooting, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Ruy Guerra, Fernando Meirelles and Walter Salles came to teach filmmaking to the young talents you had earmarked. How did you convince them to do this?  
It was very easy. They were very passionate about it. We organised technical workshops to prepare young people to make the film. All sorts of workshops: distribution, script, editing, photography… They all came: Ruy Guerra, Fernando Meirelles, Walter Salles. Everyone we invited accepted. It was more difficult to find the money to make the film than to ask for their generosity.

Was the financing the most difficult thing about the project?  
Yes, it was finding a way to make the film. I didn’t want to produce an alternative film, because they didn’t need me to do that. The idea was to give them the same resources as I have for my own films, so it was a medium-sized budget for a medium-sized production. The problem was that nobody wanted to believe in it because it was a film made by filmmakers from the favelas. It was very difficult; it took us almost four years to find the money.

You say that your film also has to give another image of the favelas than the one we get from the media. But when you read the synopsis, it talks about drugs, gangs, kidnappings… 
Yes, but not only about that. It’s a film about everyday life in the favelas and it’s a quest for identity. Saying “this is what we are and this is what we would like to be,” without any of the stereotypes. It’s impossible to make a film in the favelas without talking about drugs and violence, but it’s not the main thrust of the film. When you watch the film, there’s a kind of desire, a passion to show the viewers who they are, to tell the truth, not to just stick with the favela stereotypes. And it’s amazing to see how in each short film, there’s light, a horizon of hope, and above all an almost dialectical debate between legality and morality. When you live in a precarious situation, beyond the bounds of legality, it doesn’t mean there is no morality. All this can only be expressed by people from the favelas. Of course, there are already films about the favelas but for the first time in the history of Brazilian cinema, they are talking for themselves.

So 5x Favela was more than just a film, it was a real social project. Is this a new way forward for cinema?  
Yes, but I’d rather say that it’s above all an artistic, cultural and cinematographic project that has social consequences. Because it was also a way of finding a place in the labour market for this whole team. Most of the people who made the film have found work today. But the social project is a consequence. In the workshops, I repeated it like a mantra: don’t look for compliments because you are poor, but for the quality of your work. I don’t want people to like the film because the directors are poor, but because it’s a beautiful and sincere film.

5 x Favela is screened at 17:00 in the Salle du Soixantième in the presence of the film’s cast and crew.

V.V.E.