Director's Notes — by Hans Weingartner
Brazil is an incredibly rich country. It has the largest water resources in the world, as well as the most fertile soil. Farmers can harvest up to five times a year. Brazil has the most gold in the world, the most iron ore, the most precious stones. A young, hard-working population. A rich culture. It is warm, sunny and full of white-sand beaches. Amazing jungles, home to more species than anywhere else on the planet. Brazil could be a place of happiness. But for too many, it is a place of horror, with extreme crime and rampant poverty.
The core problem is social injustice. That is the basis of violence. When some are rich and most are poor, crime arises. All the countries in the world where people live happily have one thing in common: small differences in income, a very small gap between rich and poor.
In Brazil, however, the Gini-Index (the measure of social inequality) is worse than Russia, Rwanda or Haiti, on the same level as Zimbabwe or other developing countries. And yet Brazil is no longer a developing country — it is among the world's ten largest economies! But its social structures did not keep up with the economic growth; the elites kept most of the profits for themselves. And the whole country suffers.
None of the Brazilian films I've seen really address the reasons for the inequality. They just say that it's there.
When I talk to poor people in Brazil, they think it's God-given. They mention corruption, bad politicians — but that's only half the truth. They look for easy solutions: fascism, for example. The military. But these solutions don't work; they only make things worse.
In order to change things, you first have to understand what's going on. This is the basic idea of this series / film: you only see what you know.
Edukation with a K.
Teresa shows João what's really going on behind the scenes — how this system promotes inequality and cements it through inflation, high interest rates and an unjust tax system, and how the elite strives to keep it that way. Although Brazil is now a democracy, little has changed in the distribution of power and wealth in 400 years. Teresa opens João's eyes. When he understands, he decides to join the revolution.
"The Edukators" was and is a huge success in Brazil — a cult film, even today. While the film was seen in Europe as a philosophical treatise on the nature of revolt and the possibility of resistance against capitalism, for Brazilians it was a description of possibilities. For them, everything discussed in the movie was real. The need for radical change in society was a concrete issue, not a theoretical one.
"Edukators Brasil" picks up exactly there. Revolution: from theory to practice. It's like Jan said in the original Edukators film: Step 1 — Understand. Step 2 — Find allies. Step 3 — Fight. The original stopped at Step 2. Edukators Brasil picks up at Step 3.
What drives me, what makes me want to make this film / series: I know in my heart that Brazil could be a paradise. It just needs fundamental change. For that, people need to understand what's really going on. You only see what you know.
I will remain true to my style and shoot the film realistically, in a documentary neorealist style. As far as the "social drama" part of the movie is concerned, this is of course nothing new, but it remains very popular with audiences — authenticity will never go out of fashion. It is, however, particularly interesting for the action scenes. There are now plenty of examples of how strong and intense they can be when staged realistically, close to the characters, with the camera as a participatory companion — from "Bourne Identity" to "Victoria." This mixture in particular has a special appeal I'm looking forward to. It's simply unbeatable when you think you're in a hyper-real social drama (I can do that — I practically co-invented the genre; even with my film "White Noise," older viewers came to me shocked afterwards, convinced it was a documentary), and then suddenly these crime elements erupt. You become entangled in an adventure at close quarters. It's incredibly gripping. That was already one of the success factors in "The Edukators" — how these completely normal students suddenly become kidnappers. Almost the same thing happens to our João.
Except that he is a man of the people, from among the people. The necessity of a revolt in this film is not determined by the bourgeoisie. The transformation of the simple worker into a revolutionary is the central element of the film.
The vibrant energy of this country — the colors of the apartment blocks and the jungle, the beach and the concrete of the eleven-lane roads — offers a kaleidoscope of visual stimuli to be captured. The thousands of variations in the faces of the colorful mix of people who immigrated to this country from all continents — Asia, Europe and the Americas, in every shade — offer a further wealth of possibilities for creating images. The incredible beauty of the country's nature is captured too, at least in João's dreams of a better life, and in Teresa's visions of what Brazil could be.
I've noticed that in no film have I ever seen Brazil's cities the way I see them with my own eyes. Something is always missing. You only ever see colored images, selected excerpts. You never see Brazil as it is. An incredible number of details that catch my eye are not taken into account at all.
Where you set up the camera and which frame you choose makes a huge difference. Brazilian films are usually very focused on the actors' faces; there are hardly any wide shots, you can barely see the surroundings. This is no doubt also due to the telenovela visual language the filmmakers grow up with, which consists almost exclusively of close-ups.
Foreign productions shot in Brazil usually concentrate on the tourist showpieces: Copacabana, Rio, colorful favelas, beautiful beaches, smiling faces, beggars and street thieves, carnival and football, shanty towns and skyscrapers — clichés that sell well. I will avoid them. My perspective will be João's. I don't know exactly how yet, but I want to show Brazil as it really looks from the inside — real life, not just what is particularly beautiful, particularly ugly or particularly unusual.