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Favela Rising
Documentary
USA / 78 minutes
English / Portuguese w/ English subtitles
Winner - Tribeca Int'l Film Festival - Best Emerging Documentary Filmmaker
Winner - New York Latino Film Festival - Best Documentary
Directed by Jeff Zimbalist and Matt Mochary
Cinematography by Jeff Zimbalist, Matt Mochary, and Kelly Mark Green
Edited by Jeff Zimbalist
Original Music by Force Theory


Favela Rising documents a man and a movement, a city divided and a favela (Brazilian squatter settlement) united. Haunted by the murders of his family and many of his friends, Anderson Sá is a former drug-trafficker who turns social revolutionary in Rio de Janeiro’s most feared slum. Through hip-hop music, the rhythms of the street, and Afro-Brazilian dance he rallies his community to counteract the violent oppression enforced by teenage drug armies and sustained by corrupt police. At the dawn of liberation, just as collective mobility is overcoming all odds and Anderson’s grassroots Afro Reggae movement is at the height of its success, a tragic accident threatens to silence the movement forever.

www.favelarising.com