FAVELA RISING: Screens at the Bermuda International Film Festival on March 17 at 9 p.m. at the Little Theatre and March 19 in the Tradewinds Auditorium at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute 6.30 p.m. Portuguese language with subtitles.

?What are you going to be when you grow up? is a question that should be rife with possibility for a child.

For children living in Brazilian favelas, or slums, their answers are a little different. ?I?m going to be a gangster,? is what one little boy told Anderson Sa during the filming of documentary Favela Rising.

A few years ago, Mr. Sa didn?t want to be anything more than a gangster himself. It wasn?t until his friend was killed in a brutal police raid, that his life began to change.

As a wave of violence swept the favelas in the 1970s, he thought there had to be some way to save his people. He turned his life around, left the drug culture and came up with a band called Afroreggaae.

Through music and community programmes he managed to uplift his community. The little boys in the neighbourhood no longer had time for apprenticing in the drug culture, they were too busy learning how to play the drums.

One of the most moving moments of Favela Rising was when an old lady told the camera, ?I am so proud to be Anderson Sa?s godmother.?

Favela Rising is a Portuguese language film, but it is subtitled. It was released by THINKfilm and HBO/Cinemax Films. It appeared to be a well made, although fairly low budget film.

The credits didn?t take long to roll. Favela Rising was directed, produced, and edited by Jeff Zimbalist. He recently won Best New Director at the Tribeca Film Festival.

This is a great movie for people who love music. However, the music situation was a little confusing.

According to the promotional material that came with the review copy, the music was produced by Brooklyn based sound studio Force Theory.

What does this mean? Their website declares that they created the ?soundscape? for Favela Rising, which suggests that the music in the movie is heavily edited and ?improved?.

In other words, we are not getting the performances that the Brazilian community got. The warts have been removed, and this smacks slightly of cheating.

This is a movie about how a grass roots band inspired a community movement. The premise is that Mr. Sa and his music convinced people to drop their weapons and dance or perform themselves.

When Mr. Sa was performing in the favelas I presume there was no fancy production team. Why wasn?t the music good enough for the theatre audience?

Other than this small criticism Favela Rising is an inspirational movie about the power of one person to change the world around them. If Mr. Sa can do this in Brazil, what could people do to make Bermuda a better place?

Mr. Sa claims that since he started his musical programme there are fewer gangsters in his favela. He quotes statistics, but is unclear where they come from. Are the anecdotal. Are they scientifically proven?

It would be interesting to know, did this music programme quantitatively reduce the amount of violence in the community?

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