Brazil: Short Film Tackles Black, Poverty Issues

“Stray bullets find a place to stay if you're black and poor.” This is one of the last phrases spoken in “Peripatetic,” a 15-minute film directed by Jessica Queiroz, which takes viewers back to 2006 when the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo was the scene of a wave of attacks perpetrated, according to authorities, by the Capital's First Command gang.

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“Peripatetico” portrays the lives of three youngsters who live in a Sao Paulo periphery neighborhood over a decade ago, according to Rede Brasil Atual.

Simone, one of the main characters, goes to several interviews in the hope of landing her first job. Thiana focuses on her studies in the hope of passing an entrance exam so she may attend medical school. Meanwhile, Michael, still unsure of future prospects, spends much of his time playing video games.

“The film addresses several subjects – youth, first job, entrance exam, difficulties in being black and living in periphery neighborhoods, and police violence – but in a very ludic manner,” Quieroz explained. She added that it “shows that life is difficult, but we resist and invent new ways of seeing it.”

Most of Peripatetico was recorded in Ermelino Matarazzo neighborhood, where Queiroz lives.

The film ends with statistics accrued between May 12 and 15, 2006, which included more than 74 prison rebellions in the state of Sao Paulo. During the same time frame, 33 security officials and 51 civilians were killed. Eight out of 10 of the civilian victims were under 35 years of age and more than half were Black. A total of 94 percent of them had no previous criminal records.

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That in mind, Queiroz went on to say that she believes that Black people and people who live in peripheric neighborhoods “must be represented in a positive way on television in order for everybody to understand that periphery neighborhoods is possible.” She added that while the social climate has improved in some ways, “Black youth are still the majority of those who are murdered in our society, Black women are those who have the most difficulty in finding a slot in the labor market, and so on."

Peripatetico will be shown at 8:00 PM local time at the Cinemateca Brasileira in Sao Paulo followed by a debate with the director, scriptwriter Ananda Radhika, and three main characters interpreted by Larissa Noel, Maria Sol and Alex de Jesus.