COG CONTEXT

• City of God was released in Brazil in 2002, directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund
• The city of God is a favelea in Rio de Janeiro, a crime ridden favela that was originally created to move the poor away from the middle class and the city.
• Rio de Janeiro is known as a double city, with downtown being middle class and wealthy and the slums being home to the underclass.
• Brazil is the largest country in Latin America, and the fifth larget country in the world.
• 29% of Brazils population live in poverty (62 million)
• 85% of the film was financed by 'O2 filmes', a production company owned by the director Fernando Meirelles.
• The brazilian 'tax incentive law' financed the final 15% of the film to encourage filmamking in the country. This law was called 'Rouanet Law' - providing monetary funds for use in art and culture, including the production of movies.
• Miramax was the international distrubuter.
• Brazilian culture was mixed with rich vibrance.
• The 'Tropicalia' movement of the 60s and 70s celebrated Brazilian tradition whilst fusing it with American and European influences like pop, rock, funk and psychedelia.
• Cinema Novo movement = brazilaim filmmakers making films in response to civil and racial unrest of Brazil.
• The film was based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Paulo Lins - covering the 1960s when the 'city of god' was built and lower classes were moved from the city. Paulo explores gangs, the corrupt police force, and wider political corruption of the time.
• Organised crime = a group of people who work together to commit crimes for financial gain, these were gangs + selling cocaine in the favela,
• In Brazil, there are many different drug cartels operating within Rio de Janeiro, including the Red Command, First Capital Command, and Comando Vermelho.
• Comando Vermelho = a brazilian criminal organisation that engaged primarily in crime in favelas. They helped the people (dwellers), most people were on the dealers side rather than the police's.
• Civil war in the favelas = between police and dealers.
• The police were extremely corrupt = 'they come after the dealers and get the worker... they can't do their jobs.' They would create deals with the dealers to get money, or would arrest anyone with agression.
• GUNS: they were using military guns that the police would sell to the dealers. Dealers had AK-47's.
• Brazilian film 'rio 40 graus' inspired the visual aesthetic.
• Technically, the use of digital editing allowed Daniel Rezende (editor) to experiment.

  He claims that many of the interpretations of the characters were formed at the editing stage, and that different results could be obtained using the same footage edited in different ways.

  “all the scenes evolved from the actor’s improvisations, and of course each one was unique.”
• Meirelles and Lund provide a glimpse into the otherwise out of bounds world.
• More than 6000 people, most being from the favelas, were murdered in Rio De Janeiro in 2007
• Youth gangs took over the slums during the 1960s (the terrible trio). Unfettered by law, the youth quickly took up armed robery to cocaine dealing in the 1970s, and mass warefare in the early 1980s.
• 1960s - political prisoners politicised other in jail with them - so that crime organisation COMANDO VERMELHOM began to proclaim their enemy as the government, big businesses and middle class.
• Cinema Novo

  Genre and movement of film that rose in Brazil during the 1960s and 70s. Formed in response ton class and racial unrest both in brazil and the us.
• narrartive = rockets storytellin.
• Cesar Charlone = cinematographer