TV MORRINHO
"As Morrinho became well know in Rio
and internationally, more people wanted
to capture this amazing process of play.
Thus started TV Morrinho as a way to
gather all the various media that have
emerged from the project. Morrinho is famous for their willingness to collaborate
with other NGOs, international students,
filmmakers, and journalists. I know because
every June and July I take graduate
students from New York to Rio for a two month course in human rights and media,
and several of my students have made
collaborative films with Morrinho.
In the last ten years, a sizable collection
of short films has documented Morrinho.
The shorts cover the beginning of the
project, their many exhibitions and travels
abroad, the collaborative process of inviting
other youth into the construction of
exhibitions, and people’s reaction to seeing
the artistic process of building a miniature
favela from scratch. But the most
interesting films, at least for me, are the
ones that document the games and the
sense of play inside this miniature world.
There’s something magical about seeing
one these films that resemble small
theater pieces. It’s like a puppet show,
where we see the hands manipulating
the figures but there’s a willing sense of
disbelief and we surrender to the drama.
Morrinho workshops ideas with filmmakers
and they even storyboard the narratives.
But during the filming, a sense of
play takes over and improvisation guides
the framework for the piece." -
Peter Lucas (The New School)