It is tuesday afternoon during the Berlinale. The CinemaxX cinema is full of filmmakers, Journalists and Berlinale visitors. We manage to find a spot to record our own Interview, and are very excited when we finally get to meet and talk with Lucia Murat, the Director of ‚Hora do Recreio‘. In this interview, Lucia Murat talks about her personal background, about what moved her to make this movie, about the experience while working with the teenagers and about the systemic origins of violence. You can listen to it below, scroll further down to read along, or watch a shortened version of the Interview on our Instagram (or at the very bottom of the article).
Interview by Liv Heyden and Anouk Segebart, video and photos by Lukas Mascher.
Lucia Murat: My name is Lucia Murat and I am a filmmaker from Brazil. I am 76 years old, and I made a lot of films, I started in 1978.
Independent Generation Reporters (fGR): This is a very open question, and it’s just to give a bit of context about the film: what inspired you to make the film, and how did your film idea develop?
Lucia Murat: Well, I’ve been working with groups of theater of communities for a long time (…) I have been working with them, (…) in a lot of films. (…) And some of my films are about violence, because I was a student during the dictatorship, and I was tortured for three months, and I was in prison for almost four years. We had a dictatorship in Brazil, and, well, I was against the dictatorship. My first prison was part of a congress of students, and then, after that, I was part of the resistance. That’s why the question of violence and social questions are very important for me. When you live that, when you are very young, as I was, I was 20 years old, this experience that’s so near to the limit of life and death, you stay, through all your life, questioning about violence, about the order, about why a torturer does that, he’s a man, he’s an animal, what’s a man, what’s an animal? So I think that these questions are in all my films.
And as I said, I have been working with the group of theater of communities, in a lot of films. In general, in many films, they play the role of bandities or drug dealers, because, you know, people think that, we are in a Slum, so everyone is like that (is a criminal), and so on.
fGR: Thinking in stereotypes.
Lucia Murat: Yeah. So I thought it would be interesting to do a documentary, where they (the students growing up in slums) can speak about their pains, and they can speak. Of course, I have subjects, you know, violence, racism, sexual abuse. Well, we started doing the film, and I think what made the difference in the documentary is that, facing the difficulties we had (during the shootings), we put all those difficulties inside the documentary. That changed the documentary, perhaps for better.
But to shoot in the school, that was my idea. Because the original idea was a very classical documentary. It was to put the camera inside the school, and start a discussion. But, difficulties happen, and change everything. We didn’t have the authorization to do the shooting in that school. In Rio de Janeiro, where I live, the high school is linked with the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro. And the middle school is linked with the city council. We had the shooting authorisation from the city council, but the government of state is currently very extreme right. And they didn’t give me the authorization to shoot in any high school.
As I am a filmmaker that also works with fiction, I said, why not? We rent three cars, one bus, and rent a school, and put them there. And the teacher that appears in the film is an actress also. Nobody believes that, yeah, but she’s an actress. And so, they (the students) didn’t know her. Their real teacher was there as well, but waited outside of the classroom. I was afraid, because I didn’t know, weather if he was inside, he could receive a punishment.
fGR: In the Q&A after the premiere, the actress from the theater group, Brenda Rodrigues Viveiros, said that for the students, it’s very easy to talk about their intense experiences, because the reality of experiencing it is much more difficult than the talking about it. How was it for them to share such personal stories while being filmed?
Lucia Murat: I was afraid that they were not going to speak. I was afraid that they would be ashamed. When we started filming, they started talking, everybody at the same time, and it was a mess. And then I said, please, can you speak, each one at a time, because we are doing a film, and the sound, we need the sound, the good sound. And then it was incredible, because when the first girl, that’s the first girl that appears in the film, she starts speaking about the problem with her mother, how she ran away from her house, and everything that happens. It was, after her, that all of them started talking about their reality.
fGR: We were very impressed, because they seemed emotional, but still, like, they could just talk about it in front of a camera, and so strongly, in front of their whole class, about their own mothers, their own stories, and discrimination. That was so unbelievable for us.
Lucia Murat: Yeah, but I think that you must understand one thing that’s very important: they are survivors. Their mothers went out of violence, they are winners, their mothers are winners. All of them, all of them who are speaking. The first mother, she was capable to separate from the husband, and then now she’s okay. The second one, also, she’s okay, she was capable to separate. The third one escaped from Bahia, you know? All of them, they are telling stories of things that happened in the past. The boys and girls, they know that. That’s why they can be strong, because they have an example in their mothers. But now imagine how many mothers couldn’t be capable to escape.
fGR: Did you also hear stories of difficult situations that are still going on?
Lucia Murat: No. No, because I think that stories that are still going on, perhaps the people are not in the school, perhaps the people are on the streets, you know? I think they would not be capable to be in the school, because you need a mother, you need a family to support you.
fGR: About the second school, where you said there was a police operation. How do you experience police brutality in the favelas? And does the violence inside of the favelas mainly come from the police?
Lucia Murat: Yeah, to have an idea, last year in Rio de Janeiro, there were 55 children and teenagers that were injured by strayed bullets in these police operations. Nineteen of them were dead. That’s statistical. The police operations are against the drug dealers. The problem is that there are a lot of people that die just because they are there (on the street, close to where the police operations take place).
But the drug dealers are not good people either, you know? It’s a very difficult situation, but anyway, they (the favela inhabitants) know them (the drug dealers).
fGR: And it’s the wrong way to try to solve this problem.
Lucia Murat: We must deal with this problem as a social problem, not as a security problem. They deal with it as if it was a security problem. But that’s what we say, the weapons are not from Brazil, the weapons came from outside. Who paid those weapons that are inside the favela? Because the drug dealers are very young people, they are very young, they never live more than 26 years, they are very young. And of course in the slum, 99% of the people that live there are workers that work all day and, you know, have family and so. And they (the police) act as if everybody that lives in the slum is a drug dealer.
fGR: Also the representation of people from the favela in our media is often shown very stereotypically, for example, black people only playing roles as drug dealers. How do you think can this portrayal of stereotypes change? And what does the film industry have to change to make a difference in this?
Lucia Murat: I think that this film shows something different, and I think some groups like ‘Nos do Morro’, who made two films last year. So it’s another vision, another language, you know. And I think you must do that, we must go against this great media.
fGR: So exactly what you’re doing…
Lucia Murat: But it’s very difficult. Because we are very few. And weak.
fGR: And also, the films that you make are not seen by a big mass of people. I mean, the films that we see at the Berlinale, we can often only see at the Berlinale and not in cinemas where everyone can watch them. It is so sad that precisely these films don’t have that much space, even though they are the ones that are so important.
Lucia Murat: What we’re trying now is, we think it’s important that the school must see the films.
fGR: Did you show the films at many schools?
Lucia Murat: No, this film, the first time it was shown, it was here (at the Berlinale). I’ve just finished it.
fGR: So the students that are in the film haven’t seen the movie yet?
Lucia Murat: I did one screening last week for them. But then, much of them couldn’t go, so no. Most of them have seen it, but not all of them yet.
fGR: How did they react to it? Did they like it?
Lucia Murat: Oh, they loved it. Mainly the people from the group of theatres, they loved it, of course. They feel themselves very, very empowered.
fGR: This Question is very similar to your answer just now, but through the film we were able to get to know so many creative people, inspiring people. What spaces do you think have to open to make more people see these, or get to know these people and these experiences?
Lucia Murat: I think this is a political problem. For instance, in Brazil, the streamings, Netflix and things like that, they don’t have any rules. They don’t pay any taxes. They don’t are obliged to stream Brazilian films. So now we are fighting to have a political legislation about that. I think that all schools must have the possibility of seeing the films. That’s political. That’s public political.
fGR: I was very moved by the music in the film. I really, really loved it. And I was wondering, how did you get to know these songs, or these musicians? And how was the work with them?
Lucia Murat: I decided that the music must come from the filming. The first one was Djonga (song: A Música da Mãe), he’s a rapper. He’s a very successful rapper. He has an international name today, he is very known. But he was raised in a favela, in a big favela in Rio. And he works a lot with his life. I love his work. I went to the exhibition just to see, because I love his work. And when I was there, I said, oh, that’s incredible, because there were a lot of school boys and girls at the exhibition. And then I asked him, if I can shoot the exhibition and put it in the film for free, because I didn’t have money. And he said, okay. And so I was so happy. And in this exhibition, there was a portrait of Djonga. I said, so I must put Jonga in the Overture with the exhibition. So it comes from the filming, everything, you know. And the last one, that’s Bia Ferreira, that speaks about Cota (song: Cota não é Esmola). It’s a very strong music, the last one. And it was Michel, that’s the black teacher (from the school class in the film). And he put this song when we were filming. He put this song to the students, to do a work about it. And so everything comes from the filming.
fGR: Did you meet the Students from the first school before filming?
Lucia Murat: Yeah. I didn’t do any interview with them. But I met them. And they know me and they know I am okay.
fGR: That was all of our questions, Thank you very much!
Lucia Murat: I was very moved by the reception. The premiere was beautiful, very, very beautiful. Me and Brenda were very moved.
fGR: And we were very happy to be there and to see it. It was very magical and really, really inspiring. A very, very powerful film.
Photos by Lukas Mascher
