Façade of the Cine Favela
Rua do Pacificador.
Interior of the cinema
Is there a movie on today? It is the most spoken sentence at the entrance of this modest space that, since 2004, has been producing and spreading the culture of cinema in the community of Heliópolis, the largest favela in the city of São Paulo. In early 2020, in a didactic activity with my students of the architecture course, the name of the street (do Pacificador, peacemaker in English) and the sign on the façade caught our attention: Cinema? Street cinemas are so scarce in São Paulo that a celebration is due when we find them.
We entered, and Reginaldo, one of the founders of the cinema, welcomed us, presented the space, and invited us back. This come back took time, but it happened after two years, a pandemic, and many difficulties for the community, which structured and organized themselves to face this period as a collective. The Cine Favela has resisted. It resumed his educational activities and the film sessions, and reminds me of the power that art has, regardless of its scale.
In addition to the film sessions, Cine Favela promotes workshops of theater, capoeira, dance, film production, digital technologies, and tourist trips, always democratizing its audiences, which are children, young people, adults, and the elderly.
Want to know more? The tip is Cine Favela Film Festival, the largest event dedicated to peripheral cinema in the world and held for the first time in Heliópolis, in 2004. The event is responsible for the diffusion of the culture born in the peripheries and displays only productions carried out by NGOs, associations, collectives, students, and independent producers.
Reginaldo de Túlio, one of the founders of Cine Favela.
Kanu, Francisco Gomes Alves, physical educator and capoeira teacher at Cine Favela.
Camera use workshop, 2018 [Photo: Cine Favela]
Party at Cine Favela [Photo: Cine Favela]