Social context (C3)

• Political/ historical...
• Cidade de deus translated to ‘City of God’ is one of Rio’s seaside favellas  
• Built in the 1960s to move poor people (mostly black people), as far away from the wealthy beaches and city centre as possible (Copacabana and Ipanema) 
• They house 10 percent of the city’s population  
• Corrupt police force and out of control drugs and gun culture – police no go area
• 1960s – youth gangs took over the slums, took up armed robbery – using the slums as hideouts  
• 1970s – youth gangs began cocaine dealing and started using violence to control their areas  
• 1980s – turned into mass gang warfare  
• Poor quality of living standards, lack of space and privacy in favellas  
• The favellas are governed by their own rules and are a society in their own right  
• Meirelles provides a glimpse into this otherwise out of bounds world that the government tries to hide  
• “The young generation is in suicidal mode...they don’t care if they die or live” 
• 1950s-80s --> dealers were usually old women; drug dealing wasn’t intense – only marijuana was dealt 
• When people started dealing coke, it got more violent – more money involved, too many people trying to steal it and establish their territory  
• Drug dealers aren’t completely negative – they supply medicine, gas etc. To locals – they help those in the community in need 
• The favelas are in war between dealers and policemen and dealers and other dealers
• The police are unjust --> arrest people with no reason, they take their possessions and claim it’s because they stole them - “sometimes, cops don’t come to arrest, they come to kill” 
• Children get into dealing to survive

  Young boys work as errand boys, move to look out, move to dealers, move to soldiers – highest rank 
• Strong sense of community – everybody tries to help one another  
• Life in the favelas - “it’s like a Ferris wheel, those who are up will go down, and those who are down will go up” 
• Actor of Lil Ze’s audition was to give a testimony of his life – authenticity  
• Help groups were set up to help those involved in the production to build more promising futures 
• Many of the people living in the favelas who acted in City of God, went on to act as a career as they found it hard to return to normality afterwards  
• However, actors were only paid 2/3 thousand despite the film being a huge success 


  “There’s no point making a movie that’s known worldwide is I'm still broke” 
• Many of the actors didn’t profit off the movie, didn't get the acclaim and success they deserved