Porto Alegre, Brazil has benefited from urban revitalization.
Life and Debt
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
Brazil's massive $130 billion debt is the ultimate cause of the shocking assassination of 500 street children a year in Rio de Janeiro.
This hard-hitting docu-drama argues that the children's only crime is that they are poor and have nowhere to go. The film examines the links between Brazil's economic crisis and its tragic social and ecological plight following 500 years of domination and exploitation by Europeans, Americans, and now Japanese.
'If there is a more precise and vivid essay on the root causes of Third World misery...it could not be more potent than Life and Debt .' Toronto Star
'A powerful polemical film.' The (London) Sunday Times
Citation
Main credits
Cavalcanti, Octavio Bezerra (film director)
Cavalcanti, Octavio Bezerra (film producer)
Souza, Herbert de (presenter)
Other credits
Original music, Brunno Nhnes, Paulo Mosman, Sergio Guita; photography, Helio Silva; editor, Severino Dada.
Distributor subjects
At-Risk Youth; Brazil; Children; Conflict Resolution; Developing World; Development; Economics; Environment; Globalization; Humanities; Latin American Studies; Law; PovertyKeywords
WEBVTT
00:00:11.428 --> 00:00:13.497
[music]
00:01:46.723 --> 00:01:47.891
[gun shots]
00:02:28.031 --> 00:02:36.031
- In 1991, the Amnesty International
make a world denounce
00:02:38.708 --> 00:02:45.282
that Brazil was killing
childrens, babies,
00:02:45.649 --> 00:02:47.851
kids in the streets.
00:02:49.819 --> 00:02:53.490
This was a international scandal.
00:02:56.193 --> 00:03:01.998
It was at the international scale,
was saying that we,
00:03:02.065 --> 00:03:08.138
Brazilians, were in a situation
00:03:08.238 --> 00:03:10.540
that we never thought that was possible.
00:03:11.741 --> 00:03:19.741
That we were killing human beings
if eight, seven, nine-years-old.
00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:34.898
This was not a surprise, because in fact,
00:03:35.632 --> 00:03:40.904
in Brazil in the last four
or five, six years,
00:03:41.571 --> 00:03:47.844
we noticed that this was a reality.
00:03:50.313 --> 00:03:53.316
Brazil is no more the country of Carnival
00:03:53.850 --> 00:03:57.254
or coffee or football or soccer.
00:03:58.388 --> 00:04:04.394
Brazil is the country today
that kill kids.
00:04:04.527 --> 00:04:06.529
[music]
00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:12.155
-Bodies of trees and children.
00:06:13.456 --> 00:06:15.158
Murdering poor children
00:06:15.392 --> 00:06:22.065
and killing living forest
are opposite sides of the same coin,
00:06:23.566 --> 00:06:26.636
but who is the
responsible for these deaths?
00:06:27.637 --> 00:06:34.978
Who Brazilian people, original people,
workers, peasants, students,
00:06:35.712 --> 00:06:39.416
housewives or the people from the forest?
00:06:39.549 --> 00:06:42.652
Do they want to destroy their own future?
00:07:22.192 --> 00:07:24.093
[background noise]
00:08:06.102 --> 00:08:07.937
[background noise]
00:09:03.560 --> 00:09:05.828
[music]
00:09:44.567 --> 00:09:48.805
- In some Brazilian regions,
economic slavery still persists.
00:09:49.706 --> 00:09:54.010
In the Amazon,
workers on big farms are forced
00:09:54.110 --> 00:09:55.812
to buy their groceries
00:09:56.045 --> 00:10:00.350
at inflated price
in the shop of their bosses.
00:10:01.317 --> 00:10:06.956
The employees debt
is always kept higher than their wage.
00:10:08.358 --> 00:10:14.430
Like Brazil, Miguel pays
an endless colonial tribute.
00:11:52.061 --> 00:11:52.462
[music]
00:11:52.528 --> 00:11:55.998
- Sugarcane plantations start
in Brazil at the beginning
00:11:56.065 --> 00:12:00.503
of the 16th century,
after the arrival of Europeans.
00:12:01.571 --> 00:12:03.740
The Portuguese occupied the coastal areas
00:12:03.873 --> 00:12:06.642
and grew sugarcane on big plantations
00:12:06.743 --> 00:12:10.246
with wealthy land owners and slavery.
00:12:11.247 --> 00:12:16.853
In this way, they maintained
their imperial greed for two centuries.
00:12:18.788 --> 00:12:23.493
Moving West, the European occupation
expanded inside the continent.
00:12:24.427 --> 00:12:26.662
Throughout the 18th century,
00:12:26.829 --> 00:12:31.167
Brazilian mines produced
more that 10 tons of pure gold,
00:12:31.534 --> 00:12:35.238
stuffing European safes with huge wealth.
00:12:36.706 --> 00:12:40.977
The 20th century introduced cleaner
and more sophisticated methods.
00:12:41.544 --> 00:12:47.683
Today, instead of exporting
natural resource, Brazil exports money.
00:12:48.918 --> 00:12:51.287
The country is forced to produce dollars
00:12:51.954 --> 00:12:56.726
to feed an increasing [?]
of eternal debt.
00:12:56.893 --> 00:12:59.262
[music]
00:13:03.533 --> 00:13:06.769
The colonial ideology
has found its target.
00:13:07.670 --> 00:13:11.374
To establish a relationship
of absolute dependence
00:13:12.408 --> 00:13:15.044
of the conquered on the conquerors.
00:13:15.111 --> 00:13:17.413
[music]
00:14:08.497 --> 00:14:11.367
- During the \'80s,
Brazilian society became aware
00:14:11.434 --> 00:14:14.704
of their living tragedy
with galloping inflation,
00:14:14.837 --> 00:14:16.505
unemployment, recession,
00:14:16.606 --> 00:14:19.642
and the dramatic fall
in the quality of life.
00:14:20.276 --> 00:14:23.813
Consequently,
a whole nation is on the move,
00:14:23.913 --> 00:14:27.583
searching for life and land in one
00:14:27.617 --> 00:14:32.154
of the biggest internal migratory flutes
of the human history.
00:14:33.756 --> 00:14:37.994
All these suffering
to service the external debt.
00:14:44.400 --> 00:14:48.704
In the Brazilian North,
drawings and simple paintings,
00:14:48.804 --> 00:14:53.376
often showing donkey trying
to reach a bunch of grass
00:14:54.377 --> 00:14:58.481
that keeps moving away
while he goes on chasing.
00:15:00.449 --> 00:15:04.553
Popular poets today compare
this situation with the payment
00:15:04.687 --> 00:15:06.055
of the external debt,
00:15:06.188 --> 00:15:10.259
as well as with the immigrant
countrymen marching
00:15:10.359 --> 00:15:14.363
through endless roads
in search of their dreams.
00:15:15.097 --> 00:15:20.536
Parents and children
are strangers in their own country,
00:15:21.537 --> 00:15:23.973
with no rights of citizenship.
00:15:50.166 --> 00:15:52.868
[children singing]
00:15:55.504 --> 00:15:57.373
[child crying]
00:16:26.836 --> 00:16:29.105
-The dream of these people is the land
00:16:29.905 --> 00:16:36.078
where they can live, but now all this land
00:16:36.245 --> 00:16:40.850
is concentrated
in a very few hands.
00:18:18.581 --> 00:18:21.450
[singing]
00:19:08.297 --> 00:19:11.033
[music]
00:19:39.128 --> 00:19:43.966
- Over 500 years,
Brazilian Indians were hunted,
00:19:44.567 --> 00:19:49.238
violated, slaughtered,
but they resist extermination.
00:19:49.772 --> 00:19:53.075
They have never had a history of suicide,
00:19:54.376 --> 00:19:55.978
but in the last two years,
00:19:56.579 --> 00:19:59.682
Brazil has faced the new page
in its history.
00:20:00.449 --> 00:20:03.619
Young Indians poisoning themselves
00:20:04.153 --> 00:20:10.092
by drinking agro-toxics
or hanging themselves in sacred trees.
00:20:10.159 --> 00:20:12.962
[music]
00:21:14.823 --> 00:21:17.860
[music]
00:22:14.149 --> 00:22:16.418
[music]
00:22:49.084 --> 00:22:51.487
[music]
00:23:55.584 --> 00:23:58.720
[music]
00:25:15.063 --> 00:25:16.698
[crowd clapping]
00:26:02.444 --> 00:26:04.112
[music]
00:26:05.314 --> 00:26:07.149
[children laughing]
00:27:35.504 --> 00:27:37.239
[traffic noise]
00:30:24.940 --> 00:30:27.042
[music]
00:31:30.338 --> 00:31:33.308
[music]
00:31:35.911 --> 00:31:37.379
-Who are these kids?
00:31:40.081 --> 00:31:41.081
They are Blacks.
00:31:42.050 --> 00:31:43.251
They are poor.
00:31:45.387 --> 00:31:49.991
They are nothing,
for the Brazilian society,
00:31:51.559 --> 00:31:57.032
for the Brazilian elite,
for the Brazilian dominant class.
00:31:58.633 --> 00:32:03.204
They are nothing for the government.
00:32:05.240 --> 00:32:07.375
They are nothing for the market.
00:32:10.211 --> 00:32:12.047
They are not consumers.
00:32:14.382 --> 00:32:15.984
They have no money.
00:32:20.522 --> 00:32:24.859
They are just human beings
without nothing,
00:32:27.896 --> 00:32:32.901
and because of that,
because they are our problem,
00:32:32.968 --> 00:32:35.570
because they are our scandal,
00:32:37.138 --> 00:32:43.812
because they are the problem
of 500 years of colonization,
00:32:48.683 --> 00:32:55.557
because of all the reasons,
they have to be destroyed.
00:32:56.324 --> 00:32:58.059
[sirens blaring]
00:33:04.299 --> 00:33:06.034
[gunshots]
00:33:22.283 --> 00:33:23.418
[laughter]
00:34:06.995 --> 00:34:09.697
-This is what we have to face.
00:34:11.599 --> 00:34:18.006
This is what I reflect and I think,
00:34:23.511 --> 00:34:28.883
as a father of my son, I have to ask.
00:34:30.285 --> 00:34:33.788
Who are the killers of these childrens?
00:34:34.522 --> 00:34:37.358
[sirens blaring]
00:37:20.188 --> 00:37:23.858
[music]
00:38:00.695 --> 00:38:03.498
[music]
00:39:04.926 --> 00:39:07.295
[background noise]
00:40:06.587 --> 00:40:08.189
[gunshots]
00:42:14.048 --> 00:42:15.816
[music]
00:42:22.657 --> 00:42:24.759
-This is Brazil today
00:42:25.426 --> 00:42:29.096
with their people victimized
by greedy powerful men,
00:42:29.697 --> 00:42:31.666
the big multinational corporations
00:42:32.333 --> 00:42:34.569
and the corruption of intermediaries.
00:42:35.603 --> 00:42:39.040
All the money committed
to health, sanitation,
00:42:39.206 --> 00:42:43.878
housing and educational programs
is being diverted
00:42:43.978 --> 00:42:48.249
to private accounts fattening
the gigantic corruption
00:42:48.449 --> 00:42:52.887
that looks today like
this twin sister of external debt.
00:42:54.589 --> 00:42:58.326
There are thousands
of children living in the streets,
00:42:58.693 --> 00:43:01.762
surviving on crime or small jobs.
00:43:02.930 --> 00:43:06.634
About four children
are murdered every day in Brazil.
00:43:06.701 --> 00:43:08.202
[music]
00:43:26.420 --> 00:43:31.759
This was the Brazilian
and our scandal.
00:43:34.328 --> 00:43:40.534
What was said
by Amnesty International?
00:43:41.702 --> 00:43:43.871
What was the international denounce
00:43:44.405 --> 00:43:47.475
that we have to face
and we have to confront?
00:43:55.016 --> 00:43:59.120
These kids have to be protected,
00:44:00.221 --> 00:44:05.459
have to be loved
like we love in the world,
00:44:05.559 --> 00:44:07.762
the trees, the animals.
00:44:09.864 --> 00:44:14.301
All this talk about
ecology and environment
00:44:16.170 --> 00:44:21.308
in which we try
to give value to everything,
00:44:22.410 --> 00:44:25.379
how to give value with human beings?
00:44:26.614 --> 00:44:34.355
We can\'t kill lives that
are the possibility of this future.
00:44:34.955 --> 00:44:42.329
When humanity is able
to kill a children,
00:44:43.330 --> 00:44:51.330
this humanity is able
to do anything against humanity.
00:44:54.075 --> 00:44:58.379
Your silence, your complicity,
00:45:00.081 --> 00:45:08.081
your ignorance of what
is happening in our country
00:45:10.624 --> 00:45:17.298
is something that is not innocent.
00:45:17.665 --> 00:45:21.268
[music]
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 50 minutes
Date: 1994
Genre: Expository
Language: Not available
Grade: 10-12, College, Adult
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
Existing customers, please log in to view this film.
New to Docuseek? Register to request a quote.
Related Films
Five years later, Life rejoins a Brazilian factory worker affected…
In the state of Bahia, a new initiative encourages the landless to band…