Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Favela Rising

Afro-Reggae, a wonderful grassroots movement straight from Rio's tough Zona Norte favelas, uses music & dance to build social transformation. The group was profiled in a recent documentary, 'Favela Rising,' which won the best new documentary filmmaker prize at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Now, The Hollywood Reporter has announced, the film has a U.S. distribution contract, too. So it should be in theaters next year, courtesy of ThinkFilm and HBO/Cinemax. Check it out when it comes to your town.

3 comments:

rn said...

fg:

The Habitat Jam session is important.

One caveat, though: these electronic discussions are tilted towards the developed world, or at least to the educated and upper classes. After all, more of us have access to computers and have the technical know-how to participate in these discussions. If you believe in action from below, then some form of face-to-face communication is important.

That being said, sign me up. I'm likely to be in Moscow at the time, but that's the great thing about the web. I can log in from there, too.

Anonymous said...

Your point about the digital divide is well-taken. We're working hard to overcome that with some incredible support in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

We've signed up the President of the National Slum Dwellers Association of India, among others, to add his voice to the Jam.

I'd love to fill you in in real-time. I'm fiona.gilfillan@habitatjam.com. Looking forward to your contact and to suggesting how your already considerable voice can influence the World Urban Forum agenda in Vancouver.

Anonymous said...

In case anyone is interested in keeping up with Favela Rising, Anderson Sa, and the AfroReggae movement, there is now a blog covering the film and recent events at http://www.favelarising.blogspot.com.