From the favelas to the future (via Hackney...)

Favela Rising, Jeff Zimbalist (Dir.)
From the Favelas to Hackney
This is the Future, Paul Kelly (Dir.), Saint Etienne

Following brutal police massacres in Rio de Janeiro's Vigário Geral slum in the 1990s, the AfroReggae movement was born with the aim of offering a positive alternative to the drug-fuelled violence of the favelas. Jeff Zimbalist's documentary, Favela Rising, follows the movement's founder, Anderson Sá, a former drug trafficker turned musician, social activist and community leader. The film describes the structure of life in the favela, the dominant role of its drug gangs and the resultant social exclusion of its residents. Through the AfroReggae movement, Anderson Sá provides young kids with an opportunity to channel their energies more creatively by teaching them percussion and dance and holding mass social awareness parties. He makes insightful observations about the destructiveness of false hope. For many in the favelas, becoming a drug soldier provides one of very few ways of earning good money, but a drug soldier can rarely expect to live beyond 25 years. Poignantly, as AfroReggae's founder comments on the paralysis that violence imposes on the favelas, he himself is faced with his own paralysis when he fractures his fourth vertebra in a surfing accident. As AfroReggae's members consider whether to end the movement, Anderson Sá makes an unlikely recovery, walking unaided within four days of his surgery. Zimbalist's documentary is a rare film, about the power of social organization against negative influence and the role of culture in bringing hope.

In 2005, AfroReggae were invited to spend one week at Hackney Free and Parochial School to bring their experiences to inner city schoolchildren 6000 miles away and help them prepare for a performance at Amnesty International. From the Favelas to Hackney demonstrates the transforming influence of the experience, providing often challenging students with an outlet through performance, and an opportunity to focus on positive activities and enabling them to work together. The school is taking this experience forward, with performances at the Barbican planned for next year.

Completed in 1951, the newly renovated Royal Festival Hall is a historical landmark on London's South Bank. Built as the capital's showcase for the Festival of Britain, the building's post-war modernist design was a symbol of hope and a vision of the future. Following last year's hugely successful Hymns To London Revisited, Saint Etienne were invited as the RFH's resident artists. During the following 12 months, together with director Paul Kelly, the band made a film about the restoration of the hall. Much in the style of Revisited, the film is accompanied by a live soundtrack from the band, this time with a 60-piece orchestra and youth choir, and details the historic importance of the South Bank and the hall's careful refit, from the new acoustic ceiling membranes, to the hand restoration of the original Race seats and 4000 square metres of hand-woven carpet. As usual, Saint Etienne demonstrate a great sensitivity to the spirit of the city, producing a film that is both educational and compelling, and a vision of the future today.