Kickstarter

The favelas of Rio de Janeiro are one of the most violent places in the world. Help us tell the stories of those who call these slums their home.

Thanks to films like City of God, and constant news coverage about gangs and drug violence ahead of the Olympics, you’ve probably heard at least a little bit about the notorious favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These are a few things you might have heard:

1. Favelas are pretty scary.

2. Favelas are violent.

3. Favelas are overrun by drug traffickers, dealers and addicts.

What you probably haven’t heard is the perspective of the favelados (favela-dwellers) themselves. This is the story that, with your help, we’re going to tell when we travel to Rio de Janeiro armed with just our cameras.

What’s “Favela Firsthand” all about? After brainstorming how best to tell the inside story of the favelas, we decided to create four three-to-four-minute short films that will give those on the outside an intimate, first-person perspective on life in the favelas. We believe that these films will compel members of Rio’s upper classes and people around the world to advocate on behalf of the favela dwellers and help reduce the violence that continues to claim so many lives.

How will this project actually affect the lives of those in the favelas? Any carioca will tell you that despite the fact that Rio’s poorest favelas lie surprisingly close to its richest neighborhoods, Rio’s upper and lower classes live completely disparate lives—lives that most often intersect on the evening news when reports of gang violence in the favelas like Rocinha reaches the big-screen television sets in the Zona Sul.

However, with one of the highest levels of income inequality AND the highest social media penetration of any nation in the world, Brazil has the unique opportunity to bridge this class gap by injecting the stories of the "have-nots" directly into the living rooms of the "haves" via social media. These are the stories we will create. Pretty exciting stuff.

Ultimately, we hope that the project won't end there, but that by telling these stories on the small screen, we'll build the kind of relationships that will allow us to return and expand these stories, into something like a feature film, which can reach and affect a much wider audience.

So, you’re just going to go film in the favelas? Isn’t that pretty dangerous? This is the cool part. Our friends Antonio Costa and Jay Bauman lead Rio de Paz (River of Peace), an anti-violence not-for-profit organization that works with Rio’s government and the favelados to make favela violence a thing of the past. They’ve built relationships with community leaders in favelas including Cidade de Deus and Rocinha, and they'll make sure that our subjects and us are safe during the filming.

We can’t wait to get these amazing stories on tape and share them with the world. We're leaving on February 14th and though we're putting a lot of our own funds into this project, we would like to raise at least $1825 to help us get there. We hope you’ll be a backer, and become a part of this project that we believe will change the way Rio and the world see the favelas.

To make a tax-deductable donation, please contact us directly.

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