How Your Story Can Change. And Sometimes For the Better
Documentary stories can be found in places and moments that we least expect. I was celebrating my nephew’s first birthday in São Paulo on a chilly Sunday afternoon among friends and family. It’s always nice to go back to where I grew up. My extremely curious partner, who was also at the party, asked lots of questions about everyone we met. She was especially curious about three siblings that showed up to the party. I knew them. We are family friends. We are all from the same favela (slum). They are parentless, young Black people with different sexual orientation and gender identities. After a few sentences trying to describe them she asked if we could tell their story.
We brainstormed about ways to tell their story without reinforcing the prejudice they suffer daily, and, at the same time, show how hard it is for them to overcome obstacles to be accepted in a society that’s not always welcoming. I convinced them with this idea. Our crew was small and so was our budget. And we had one month to get it all done before moving to Canada.
It was exciting and it was an opportunity to get to know them better. I didn’t really know their stories. We started interviewing the siblings. One by one. The space in their house was tiny and it barely fit our gear set up plus three of us while we went through some emotional quotes and eye-opening situations.
In Brazil, being Black and queer can be extremely dangerous. Figures released by Brazil’s National Association for Transgender People (ANTRA), indicate that 175 transgender people were killed in 2020. Reports of violence against other members of the LGBTQ community are just as grim. Attacks on an hourly basis against members of the LGBTQ community have been reported. Most of the victims from the queer community are Black.
In our documentary short, originally we thought we would be showing their relationship with one another in the favela, which we did, and how it’s compounded by the challenges of living in poor conditions. But, from the start, they told us if they had the financial means to move elsewhere in São Paulo, they would stay in the same favela, where their community is, where their friends and family are, close enough to each other and where they felt safe.
We knew that we needed to be more specific, and that the story arc wasn’t complete. The a-ha moment was when we realized that the older brother’s birthday was in a couple of weeks and it was around the same time as the São Paulo LGBTQ Pride Parade. Let’s celebrate life!, we thought. The question was “Would they all be keen to go to the Pride Parade”? We weren’t sure about the older brother, who isn’t a queer and is the father figure for the family. This new element became crucial.
The production had to move forward. We arranged our credentials for the Parade, contacted local musicians and invited some friends and families for the birthday party. The story was about themselves as a family, and how they have redefined what it means to be a family.
In the end we came up with a synopsis for our short documentary 3 Siblings: “Every year, São Paulo hosts one of the world’s largest Pride Parades to celebrate Brazil’s LGBT community. But homophobia and transphobia are still rampant in South America’s largest nation. Ludmylla, Victor and Ângelo, who were born and raised in one of São Paulo’s favelas, show us how they face these societal challenges everyday, and how it impacts their relationships with each other”.
Post-production was finalized in Canada and the short documentary “3 Siblings” has been touring the international festival circuit since 2018 in film festivals as Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival, OUTFEST Los Angeles, RAINDANCE Film Festival, and SHORTS MEXICO Festival Internacional de Cortometrajes de México, just to name a few.
It was an extraordinary experience and the best take away from this project was how important it is to really show empathy while connecting the dots learned along the way. Sometimes the story tells itself.
