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Leo Santos, "The Proven Value Of Art During A Pandemic"
49 Plays4 years ago
Leo is a filmmaker, writer, director, and cameraman from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
I had the great pleasure of meeting Leo and his wonderful wife Mabel at the International Film Festival Ierapetra on Crete in 2018 and we got along brilliantly right from the start.
Leo was running with his documentary film "Right There", the story of a Rio policeman, who abhors the use of guns and violence in general, traveling to South Africa to understand how a country that had been so deeply divided by Apartheid had managed to bridge its seemingly insurmountable racial gap and what lessons this possibly entailed for Brazilian society - a society deeply entrenched in racial politics.
It is a movie that shows us that constructive solutions can be more easily found by moving away from stereotypical interpretations (i.e. all policemen advocating the use of guns as a means of power) and by looking at similar problems in a different context (the overcoming of racial segregation on another continent and in another society). Turning one's attention away from one's immediate surrounding and, therefore, breaking one's own subjectivity, can be a way to break the chain of hate and anger. This is one of the very powerful lessons the film has to offer to us.
"Right There" won the Ierapetra Festival Award for this outstanding achievement. Additionally, it won the Award of Recognition at the Impact Doc Awards, and was part of the official selection of the Film Com Festival in Nashville, USA.
Leo is politically active in a Brazil progressively undermining civil rights. He holds a firm belief in social and political justice, and is therefore willing to fight for his beliefs even at the expense of his own safety and freedom. All the qualities worthy of anyone's admiration and praise - including my own, of course.
Therefore, I was extremely happy to have Leo on the show.
Show Links:
Everything related to Leo:
- www.pressafilmes.com
- www.instagram.com/pressafilmes
- www.instagram.com/leodapressa
- "Coordenadas", Leo Santos, 2018
- Everything else:
- Get Jim Kroft's song "Love In The Face Of Fear"
- "Good Job" by Alicia Keys
- “The Edge Of Democracy, Petra Costa, 2019
- “The Influence of the Brazilian Dictatorship on Brazilian Music: A Rhetorical Analysis of Protest Songs”, Fernanda Rezende, 2008
- “Farofa"
- “The Chamber”, John Grisham, 1994
- “Quilombo”
- “City Of God”, Fernando Fereilles, 2002
- “To Kill A Mockingbird”, Harper Lee, 1960
- “The Crown, Peter Morgan, 2016
- “Catharsis”
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Transcript
Introduction and Journey to Brazil
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome to a brand new episode of the Yellow Van Stories. I am your host and driver Bastia. We have been waiting just for you and kept your seat by the window side. Feel free to order any imaginary beverage that strikes your fancy. Fonzie is in first gear already and we are good to go. So buckle up and get comfortable cause today we're going to Brazil.
Meet Leo Santos: Filmmaker from Rio
00:01:02
Speaker
Here with me today is Leo Santos, a filmmaker and writer, director, and a cameraman from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It's a pleasure to have you here, Leo. How are you? It's my pleasure, Bastia. Very nice having you here, and it's really an honor being your show.
00:01:23
Speaker
Thank you so much, Leo, for saying that. I did pay you for that, of course. We will take care of that later. Okay.
Caipirinha: Brazil's Iconic Drink
00:01:32
Speaker
So to start off, first of all, you know, I ask everybody to prepare a drink for themselves. What did you prepare for yourself? I prepared caipirinha. It's very Brazilian. Yeah, it's very Brazilian, very cheap, very good. The best one. All right. So you prepared it because it is also one of your favorite drinks?
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of my favorites. I used to say that's a symbol of capitalism here because it's very cheap to make it and it's very expensive in bars. So I like to do it at home to make it myself.
00:02:08
Speaker
It's only cachaca, lemon and sugar. Nice, nothing else. I can't imagine why is that so expensive outside? Well, I can tell you why, because those bars are trying to make a living and that's one way to do it. But it is basically, it's also a very Brazilian drink because all the ingredients basically is they grow outside your house. I mean, not literally, of course. Yeah, sometimes it is close to home, but it's very easy to find the ingredients.
00:02:39
Speaker
All right. Nice. I did pour myself a gin tonic just in case anyone's interested. I don't know why, but lately I've been on a gin tonic trip for quite a bit. I have this gin tonic. The gin is made of
00:02:54
Speaker
It's made with an orange flavor, super nice. And then what you do add is a slice of grapefruit and you just pour it off, pour it up with tonic water. And it's just, duh, of course. But it's super nice. The grapefruit just makes an amazing difference. It's just so fresh and
Brazil's Gin and Tonic Trend
00:03:13
Speaker
nice. I'm living off that stuff. I have more than I should right now. I don't know if you have noticed yet,
00:03:20
Speaker
But here in Brazil it became a very common to find Gentonic parties from some time from now. It just became a fashion way too.
00:03:32
Speaker
It was just a phenomenon here. Everywhere you go now, not now exactly, but before that. It was very everywhere. They were gymtonica. It was not everybody that liked it in the past. It is very one of my favorites also. But now from some time from now, it was very common here. I don't know why.
00:04:00
Speaker
Did you notice something like that? It became very fashionable. Yeah, yeah. Did you notice something like that?
00:04:07
Speaker
Not really. I've always liked Gentonic because it's just a nice, you know, it's like a smooth drink. It's nice on the palate, like it's very drinkable. Easy to make. Which is a great add-tactor for a drink. It's very drinkable. I just like it. I've always liked it. I don't always have it, but lately, really, because of this mix with this
00:04:30
Speaker
orange gin and the grapefruit. It's just really great. And to be honest with you, I actually did not feel like drinking at all because I had like a video chat yesterday with friends and colleagues and we were guessing songs online and had to type it in and we were drinking as well. And I had a little bit too much to drink last night. And I still have a bit of a headache.
00:04:56
Speaker
But I thought, you know, I mean, I'm asking you to pour yourself a drink. I can't let you drink alone. So here I am, having this gin tonic, despite my better knowledge. It's nice, nice way to start drinking alone, making a podcast, isn't it? Yeah, you know, it's a way to get together and pass some time in this crazy time of
Pandemic Work-from-Home Life
00:05:16
Speaker
Corona. And you don't feel guilty.
00:05:20
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know what guilt means. I have no idea what the meaning of the word guilt is, really. Excellent. So now that we've cleared the alcoholic situation on both sides, where are you right now, Leo? I'm real. I'm Villa Sabelte.
00:05:37
Speaker
neighborhood very famous of the bohemian side in the past. And I'm at home in my office here. It was my home office before we all forced it to work at home. I used it to work here.
00:05:57
Speaker
So for you, that looks like that didn't change much. Did you have the office at home before then as well? Or did you actually go and commute to a workplace every day? Yeah, I used to go to a workplace every day. But when I arrived home, I used to use that space to screenwriting to
00:06:13
Speaker
to work in my own projects, not from the company I work for. And I use it to work at home from two decades, something like that. So yeah, it's not a big change for me.
00:06:29
Speaker
despite the fact of not being able to find friends to go to places, but it's not so big a difference. I'm already used to work at home, to organize my time. Sometimes I work for someone, sometimes I work for myself, so it's not a big change in my life.
00:06:53
Speaker
All right. But before it was optional, now it's kind of like you can't escape it. It's the only place you can run. Yeah, I think I've been working more than in the past, you know, because I worked a little bit early and there's no time of taking the subway to go to work. So I started working earlier and stops later. I don't think I'm sure I'm working much more than in the past.
00:07:21
Speaker
All right. And would you care to just also describe the room to you? Would you care to describe the room to us a little bit? What's surrounding you, like some of the items? There's a play for books and a coach. That's always good. Yeah. And that's it. There's a wall full of my paper projects here. And this is it.
00:07:51
Speaker
Lots of books, coach and project post-its in the wall. Lots of post-its. That's always good. Send yourself out those reminders. Do you have a favorite object in the room or something where you're like, I really like that about the room? I think the coach. It's the best place. The coach is the best part.
00:08:18
Speaker
Is it a leather couch? What is it? No, no. It was a gift from a friend of ours. It was the music as a scenario of a play. And we were moving here, and our friend told us so. Go there to the theater and get the couch. It's yours. Oh, thank you. That's a very nice gift. I love to get a couch as a gift. Awesome.
00:08:48
Speaker
So is that where you take your afternoon naps when you can? Yeah, where I read books and yeah, it's a good place to stay. Not a nap. There's a long time that I cannot take a nap. All right. Okay. So now that we cleared up where you are, just about, and what it looks like a little bit and what you're drinking, very essential information.
Exploring 'Right There': Racial Tensions and Film Festivals
00:09:12
Speaker
I wrote a little, well, CV is maybe a little over the top, but like a little introduction so people know a little bit more about you. I'm going to read it out to you. And after that, you will just tell me whether you think that was the biggest load of crap you've ever heard or whether you say, you know, yeah, I can live with that. All right. Let's go. Leo is a filmmaker, writer, director and cameraman from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. I mean, I covered that in the beginning pretty much, but still.
00:09:39
Speaker
I had the great pleasure of meeting Leo and his wonderful wife, Mabel, at the International Film Festival Yara Petra on Crete in Greece in 2018, and we got along brilliantly right from the start. Leo was running with his documentary film right there, the story of a real policeman
00:09:55
Speaker
who abhor the use of guns and violence in general, travelling to South Africa to understand how a country that had been so deeply divided by apartheid had managed to bridge its seemingly insurmountable racial gap and what lessons this possibly entailed for Brazilian society, a society still deeply entrenched in racial politics.
00:10:15
Speaker
It is a movie that shows us that constructive solutions can be more easily found by moving away from stereotypical interpretations, meaning in this case that all policemen advocate the use of guns as means of power, and by looking at similar problems in a different context, like here the overcoming of racial segregation on another continent and in another society.
00:10:37
Speaker
Turning one's attention away from one's immediate surrounding and therefore breaking one's own subjectivity can be a way to break the chain of hate and anger. This is one of the very powerful lessons the film has to offer to us and had to offer to me.
00:10:54
Speaker
Right there, therefore, Rightfully won the Yarra Petra Festival Award for this outstanding achievement. And additionally, it won the award of recognition at the Impact Doc Awards and was part of the official selection of the FilmCom Festival in Nashville, USA. Leo is politically active in a Brazil progressively undermining civil rights. He holds a firm belief in social and political justice and is therefore willing to fight for his beliefs, even at the expense of his own safety and freedom.
00:11:24
Speaker
all the qualities worthy of anyone's admiration and praise, including my own, of course. Therefore, I'm extremely happy to have you on the show with us, Leo, and welcome you to the Edelband Stories. Anything to say to that.
00:11:39
Speaker
Okay. Thank you very much for this introduction. Can you send me, send it to me? Yeah. I've never heard something like that before. I didn't pay you, but I can't do that. Sure. We'll find a way. We'll find a way. My agent will phone your agent that day. No problem. Thank you very much.
00:12:02
Speaker
My pleasure, is there anything that sticks out to you? Is there anything you want to maybe rectify or can you, you know, would you say that that was, you know, a good representation? Yeah, it was wonderful. It's very difficult to talk about myself and write about myself. I know. But it's very generous from you. I know you have a very sensitive
00:12:25
Speaker
look about the world. And that's one of the things that put us together. We have very similar vision of the world. So that's why I'm very happy to hear that premiere. Thank you, Leo. I'm very glad you liked it. It just teaches me next time I have to be a little more controversial.
00:12:47
Speaker
to get a little more of a reaction. But I'm glad you like it very much. It's great. I'm very happy. Cheers to that. Have a sip of caipirinha. Yeah, that's nice. It's very important to drink something in this apocalypse. Yes. This is what will make us get through it somehow. Exactly. A state of oblivion. Yeah, it's easy to burn in hell when you're full of alcohol.
00:13:16
Speaker
According to some in the world, anything with a high percentage of alcohol is killing the virus from the inside. It doesn't have to be bleach, it can just be really high percentage alcohol, I suppose as well. Can you tell me, Leo, how do you spend your days at the moment? How is quarantine for you? Is it still on in Brazil actually?
Pandemic and Social Inequality in Brazil
00:13:37
Speaker
Not everybody knows. How is that working out in Brazil right now?
00:13:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think the quarantine is shaking our society to show the social difference much stronger. It's more visible to everybody because there are some people that can stay at home, they can work at home, they can continue to get salary and things like it is happening for me, for example.
00:14:10
Speaker
I've got a salary which was a little bit cut because the company cannot afford it for a very long time, but they sent us home.
00:14:22
Speaker
But I'm sure that's not the reality for most of Brazilians. So for me, I feel kind of privileged to stay here, to have a computer, having reasonable internet to continue my work. And I don't know one single person that's completely healthy.
00:14:49
Speaker
mentally healthy. But I can imagine how the more poor people are suffering. They cannot continue their job. They cannot carry money. They have very difficult access to health care, to hospitals, even from soap and water, people who live in the favelas here.
00:15:11
Speaker
And I know some people that are suffering very much. So for me, every time that I start,
00:15:21
Speaker
trying to complain about the life or, oh, that sucks. I cannot get out of home. I cannot see my people. But I immediately, I remember people that are suffering much more. They are living, the favelas living in some difficult, there are some places here that have difficult sex to basic.
00:15:44
Speaker
services and now it is much worse for them. For me, as I told you, it's not a very tough time because I've already used it to work at home. But I feel like
00:16:03
Speaker
I miss a lot going out, see people going to the beach, to bars, to the cinema. I miss it a lot, but I know it's just a matter of privilege. You know, there's nothing that I can, that I
00:16:23
Speaker
I don't have, I don't have access, you know? So I have food in my fridge, I have beverage, I have access to make a lot of things, you know, to watch movies and to read books. So for me, it's a kind of privilege, but I feel I can hear from people very close to me, they are suffering, they don't have access, and it hurts me a lot.
00:16:52
Speaker
I think this whole crisis is also exposing the differences, the social differences in our societies more. I think that's actually almost something universal. And not to say that it's all the same. I mean, because poverty in some countries is obviously something entirely different than in others. But I think regardless of those levels, I think in every country, yes, it will definitely expose those social differences more, just like you said.
00:17:18
Speaker
That's terrible. At the same time, maybe there's also a chance in that to some degree. I mean, it's very difficult to say. Only time will tell, of course, as always. So, all right. So tell us, actually, just in between, I want to ask you a question because today I was also, you know, the whole podcast is also about, you know, creativity in the time of crisis, basically, you know, triggered by this whole Corona thing.
00:17:47
Speaker
But because I feel that at the moment art and culture is giving me so much and to keep my sanity. And just yesterday I discovered this beautiful, beautiful song by Alicia Keys, which is called Good Job. It's basically a homage to all the health workers and everything.
00:18:10
Speaker
And it's a beautiful, beautiful song. And if you have that in mind, it really, I mean, I mean, I'm really not joking. Like I hear it. I cry like a baby. It's amazing. So I love that song very much. Check it out. I mean, you might not cry, but it's very nice. I'm crying for any kind of thing.
00:18:31
Speaker
We will meet after this podcast and we will cry together. How does that sound? Yeah, perfect. Excellent. Shared tears is something wonderful. So I wanted to ask you with this long introduction, have you come across anything lately? I mean, that's just one of my many things that I've come across. It was yesterday and today and it will evolve over the next few days as well, sure.
00:18:57
Speaker
But have you come across a piece of art, something that really deeply moved you lately, that kind of maybe sums it up or gives some relief to everything that is happening? Wow, that's a good question, you know, because I've been... It's a very loaded question, I know. Take your time. Yeah, I've been consuming lots of things, you know, different things, things I had to read. I think we all do, yes. Yeah, I read a book
00:19:26
Speaker
800 pages of a very important book here. I wanted to read it a long time, but it scared me because it's very big, 800 pages. And I just read it. It talks about a slave woman
00:19:50
Speaker
that wrote the memories, you know, she learned to read and to write and she wrote her memories and someone found it and wrote a book about it. It's very touchable.
00:20:07
Speaker
I think it's changed my life and I just read it. I'm still shaken by it. I can send you the link of the book to read something about it. I don't know. I think happily very much.
00:20:26
Speaker
And I, I'm trying to... What is it called again? Color defect, something like that. I don't know if it's there, a translation, color defect in Portuguese. It sounds so nice. That sounds so nice. Yeah. It's a very important art piece that touched me recently.
00:20:54
Speaker
All right. Yeah, we'll definitely put that in the description for anyone interested in that, of course. And I will also go, yeah, please send it because I would also very much like to read it. I'm reading a book on Ledlin right now. I don't know for some reason I've turned to
00:21:11
Speaker
Russian Revolution and everything that followed behind it. For some reason, I seem to be very interested in dictatorial regimes right now. So yes, for some reason, who knows? But that will also definitely go into my reading list. Thanks for sharing that. Okay.
Creative Challenges During Uncertain Times
00:21:33
Speaker
How does the Corona crisis affect you? You've already said that you are working from home now, that you are lucky enough to have a desk and a computer to work on, and that that is a privilege, and I agree with you. I feel the same way.
00:21:54
Speaker
But how else? Does it also inspire you in your work and your projects? Are you working on something that was maybe triggered by the Corona crisis? It's very difficult to concentrate. We just heard the dog in the background barking, so I can imagine that.
00:22:19
Speaker
Sometimes I think, oh, why am I writing it? I don't know, not even if I can be alive by the end of this screenplay. That's a very dark way of looking at things. Everything I write is I start thinking, oh, I have to write it because if I die in this time, maybe someone get it and we'll make it for...
00:22:47
Speaker
But I don't know, really know is something like that will happen. But anyway, here in Brazil, we have a legacy at least. Yeah, but I have a legacy that I mean, that's also good working on your own legacy. But sorry, just quickly, are you personally also like, like, like worried and scared of the virus that you might get it?
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes it's gotta get this. My wife works in a hospital and she sees people dying every day. And I know that you achieve us. I don't know, not even if we are already, we were already infected. I really don't know. Maybe we were already.
00:23:29
Speaker
I hope I had already stuff. But you asked me how it did affect me. And I've been struggling to break into the business for a long time, you know, almost seven years. I just made my first movie in 2013. And now I am
00:23:52
Speaker
For all these years, I've been studying, I've been trying to make other things. And here in Brazil, we had a very terrible attack to the culture from the government. So everything that was due to new projects, new films, new series, new screenplays, they were already before the pandemic.
00:24:20
Speaker
and it was completely closed so it's very hard to break into the business unless you do some crazy stuff for your own or getting together with people that's why i'm trying to do to find people who want to write with me and i try i've been trying to read some different people from
00:24:43
Speaker
different producers, different screenwriters. Is there like an art funding in Brazil? Is there like a cultural funding in Brazil for movies and a sort? We had, but now it's less. Yes, it's more than one year completely closed. Everything, like all the culture funding. Every from federal government.
00:25:06
Speaker
the biggest. We have some in one city and another city of state government, but not from all the country. We just lived now a very huge movement of Brazilian films in different festivals, the most important festival. And they were all
00:25:33
Speaker
result of 10 years government investment. They had a development found very important and we don't have it anymore only to people to write, to have their ideas. We were used to be paid to have ideas. That's the perfect found, in my opinion.
00:26:00
Speaker
And we don't have it anymore. We have to write a completely screenplay so as to shoot someone. And in that time, we don't have any money to do it. So we have to do with the time that is at least.
00:26:17
Speaker
it should be a profession, you know, I had to be paid for that and I'm not. So it's a very, it was before the pandemic and still now and I don't know what's going to happen with the
00:26:33
Speaker
with the Brazilian culture, especially the cinema. The movies here, we had passed through something like that in the early 90s. We had a president just like Bolsonaro, but he was intelligent.
00:26:50
Speaker
That's the difference. He was not a completely idiot, but he closed. He shut up all the film industry. They had the same speech that the film industry were completely controlled by the communists and things like that. And he shut down everything about movies. And Bolsonaro did the same.
00:27:15
Speaker
And I think we are going to, but for other side, we have different technologies arriving and streaming and things like that. And I hope those different technology look at us and invest on having ideas of screenwriting and things like that. But we are having very tough time here.
00:27:42
Speaker
I can imagine, I mean, if that just breaks away. So that basically broke away when Bolsonaro took office, right? That's a year ago now. So that was, you know, one seems to have been one of his first, you know, acts of office then, kind of. Yeah, I think it's the every, every dictator, they make something like that. Would you call it a dictator? Yeah, yeah. It's a different kind of dictator, you know, because
00:28:11
Speaker
He was elected, but there were all manipulation of information and for different kinds of institutions. A lot of dictators have been elected before that, you know. But he is. His behavior, it's like he is the owner of a small shop, you know. I don't like this...
00:28:40
Speaker
this soft drink. I don't drink this soft drink, so take it off. We are not going to sell this soft drink. But he's not the owner of a shop. He's president of a country. It was an important country in the past. We are not anymore. We are now a synonym of dumb people.
00:29:06
Speaker
I don't see that simply. I really never see anything this simply, to be honest. It's very easy to say that it's a dumb country because they voted for somebody. I do believe it is much more complex than that. It's a working of many things. Also, a lot of people nowadays seem to think that Americans are stupid because they voted for Trump.
00:29:26
Speaker
I think there's a lot of forces at play, and it depends really on the context of what is going on in our country, and also on who is creating public opinion very much. It is infrastructures, and that's not always politics.
00:29:46
Speaker
There are a lot of things involved in that. There's also capital involved and so on and so on. So just to say that people are stupid is very, very easy. And I think that happens a lot these days, but I think that is also dead wrong because then you are just making everybody in the country responsible for one single person. And that is never a good way of looking at anything.
00:30:08
Speaker
So it would be much more interesting to me to really look at the problems of Brazil as a country, where it comes from, how the structures are, why this could happen. Maybe we can actually use this time now to indulge me and the audience a little bit on why do you think that Bolsonaro was actually possible? Why Bolsonaro happened, to put it that way?
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah, we have a structure here, very well set up. It's, it's like we were a big farm. And we are shared between the farm owners and the workers, you know, and we have a very, very well made elite here that controls everything. And
00:31:02
Speaker
That sounds a bit like a colonial heritage that you were describing there. Yeah, yeah, there's slavery, it's the beginning of every
00:31:10
Speaker
wound that we have here so we every time we can they that these elites is they control everything the communication ways and banks and big companies and they are always looking if they are going to lose something they never lose anything never since since
00:31:32
Speaker
fifteen hundred they never lose anything and they are always worried about that about not losing so they in the the chess table that was settled up they looked who can lead our project
00:31:53
Speaker
better. Now since 2016, when Dilma, our president Dilma Rousseff, were impeached, it was because of that and he looked at her and said... Under very shady circumstances, just to quickly add, and under very shady circumstances where actually like, you know, there were
00:32:14
Speaker
correct me if I'm wrong, but kind of new laws created in order to make it legitimate to impeach her, right? I mean, there were no actual legal grounds to impeach her. Yeah. But they were created after the fact, kind of. Yeah, it was a theater that was set up so as to push her away, because these elites were losing the power in some kind of ways. So they had to, they were,
00:32:43
Speaker
together to try to think how can we pass all over all our plans of economy and things like that so they are doing labs but they couldn't imagine there was this pandemic in the middle of it so they cannot the economy both now were selected with the promise of making the economy and a liberal economy
00:33:10
Speaker
you know privatize everything to make reach people richer that is it so they are going we are going to an opposite direction.
00:33:23
Speaker
Because everything is going to be a crash. Because he had socialist presidents as well, actually. I mean, you had Dilma Rousseff, like you just said, and you had Lula before that, who was actually somebody that was standing for a large change also in Brazil to end the century-long structure.
Political Climate: Bolsonaro's Rise and Cultural Impact
00:33:45
Speaker
At least people had those hopes for him.
00:33:49
Speaker
got out of office under very suspicious circumstances, actually, if I remember that correctly. Yeah, yeah. Lula stayed at his chair to the end and was very well seen by people to the end, despite the corruption process that were
00:34:13
Speaker
Ronnie, he made a possible... And they got him in jail eventually as well. Yeah, because it was part of this chess table. Bolsonaro is only president now because a judge put Lula in jail and he couldn't run for president.
00:34:37
Speaker
And these same judges were just the secretary of Bolsonaro until last week. He's a political working as judge. So this kind of... He has an interest, basically, right? Yeah, this promiscuous... He's not an objective judge. No, he wasn't. And probably he will run for president next election. Probably.
00:35:07
Speaker
And it will prove that was all a political game. Everybody was making their own movement. And now we are suffering.
00:35:18
Speaker
It now was not wants to control everything, the police, the federal police here, it's like political police. All his family are involved in corruption problems and he wants to control the federal police, so it's not they get caught in any of this process.
00:35:44
Speaker
And that's why I say he's a detector, because he wants to control every institution, every three institutions. He wants to control it so as he can survive. But I think it will pass. Everybody will wake up and see what a mess it was allowing a dumb guy.
00:36:10
Speaker
perverse guy like that, a bad guy. He has a terrible past. And how can you imagine it would be a good president? Crazy thing.
00:36:23
Speaker
You know, I think I'm always very careful nowadays also to speak of elites because also the word elite has also been used a lot of times, for example, also by Donald Trump to describe, you know, something of a ruling class, basically, that has to be gotten out and in a way, therefore justifying his own very authoritarian politics and also very xenophobic politics.
00:36:50
Speaker
and all of that. So that's why the term has been used on so many levels and also with so much, you know, a different context, that I'm always very careful of using that. But just to, you know, and some people also react, I think, to that a little
00:37:07
Speaker
a little apprehensively, but we also talked another time and we both saw this documentary film. I think it is The Edge of Democracy, right? Yeah, it is. It's on Netflix. Yes, it is a great documentary about exactly what we were just talking about, about Lula, about Dilma Rousseff, about the end of the socialist dream in a way.
00:37:31
Speaker
socialist, maybe, but at least, you know, a democratic dream in Brazil. And it is a wonderful movie. I'll also put a link in the description because it is just really very direct, very upfront. And it is very thought provoking. And I think it is painting a very good picture, I would say, of Brazil and its political situation. Would you agree? Because I mean, I shouldn't be the judge of that. I think you should be the judge of that, of course. Yeah, I
00:37:58
Speaker
I think it's a very important movie because it's made from from someone that came from that elite. The problem is we have a very, as I said, it's a very perfect elite that they control everything and they make
00:38:16
Speaker
A second class, middle class, I think they are elite as well, but they are not. They are workers. It's very simple to understand that they are workers and they are owners. The director of Edge of Democracy, she came from a family from that elite, the owners of everything.
00:38:40
Speaker
And she can make this movie from her own point of view, of course, but it's very important to hear that. And I think it's a wonderful movie. It's a personal movie. There were people saying, yeah, it's very, it's a very clear sight. Of course, it's a movie. It's not a TV journalism show, you know, it's a documentary. It has to have the
00:39:08
Speaker
the director view, personal view. And I think it's very important from someone who came from the family, a REIT family, from the construction company owner,
00:39:22
Speaker
And they were involved with the corruption process and she can talk about it from that side. She had access to different layers of society because she's from that very important family here.
00:39:39
Speaker
And it's a very important and possible movie to make. I cannot make it because I don't have her money and I don't have especially her access to different layers of that part of society that the top of the pyramid.
00:39:58
Speaker
Yes, but you have access to other ones, and that access is also quite fantastic. For instance, the whole film right there, you also showed it to a large part of the police force, which is, I think, in essence, pointing out something very important, namely that with your art, it is very easy to reach the people who think the same as you anyway.
00:40:24
Speaker
I think the goal of anything, if you want to create and want to put something out there that is important to you, I think you should always be actually mainly be addressing the people that might not share your opinion. Yeah, I was in a university here, a very important university showing the movie. It was very important time for me. And someone asked me,
00:40:49
Speaker
why Brazilian documentary are so good, so well seen all over the world and not very well seen here in Brazil. I thought first of all, it's very difficult to make movies and culture is very expensive, making movies is very expensive and documentaries
00:41:12
Speaker
are expensive as well, but it's much cheaper than a feature film. You don't need that 100 people on set to make a documentary. My first movie was with three people, a producer, an interviewer, and I.
00:41:32
Speaker
So, okay, it's not a perfect documentary, but anyway, I was in... I love it. What's perfect? Sorry, just saying. And it was the first documentary you made and you won awards and you are just... Sorry, I can't let that stand. I have to just quickly go in here. It's like anyone who gets the chance, just go watch it. It's really very beautiful and it's very eye-opening and it's also very daring as well. So, I cannot let that stand, really. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yes. But I think, you know, you're tapping on something there as well. I think Austin Wells once said, and I'm just kind of quoting because I know he didn't say it quite like that, but close enough. He said, you know, a painter, he just needs some paint, a filmmaker, he needs an entire army. And I think that's, that's, that's pretty true. You know, like, in film, you need a lot of people to do it well.
00:42:25
Speaker
Not to say that should be an excuse to not do a film, but very often either you have a lot of money or you really have to run and gun it. And that's also challenging in itself, of course. Yeah, because you have to make connection with different people, different layers. And even with the people who will watch a movie, they are part of this army.
00:42:52
Speaker
And yeah, because if no one sees your movie, no one watch it.
00:42:57
Speaker
It's useless. So we have a very difficult industry. Which has gotten a lot more difficult now that there's no funding anymore, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everybody's trying to think how we can survive now this next two years, two and a half years, and how we are going to survive after it, because everything is going to be shaken. The world will be shaken.
00:43:26
Speaker
We are trying to, but I believe we are going to achieve another level of it because we had something just like that in the past with our military dictatorship. And we had a great, great music movement here in Brazil. Until now, we have one of the greatest music industries
00:43:53
Speaker
I can say of the word, because if you say about, okay, American music, what is American music, you know, a country, maybe rap, something like that, but everybody in the world, we have a varied, here in Brazil, we have a very specific
00:44:12
Speaker
kind of music that were raised something like that was challenged in the military dictatorship. It kind of started being created then. This is when it was born, if you will. A lot of censorship, a lot of
00:44:31
Speaker
artists that were hunted by the dictatorship, they had to go abroad, they tried to survive somehow, and it forced those people to invent a kind of music that the stupid military, they read it.
00:44:55
Speaker
And they don't understand what they are saying. Okay, I think it's possible to be shown on the radio. And we are talking about them, you know, calling that they are stupid, they are torture.
00:45:11
Speaker
Okay, let's do it and let's allow it because they're just talking, they're singing words and connected. That is amazing. That is amazing because it kind of brings me also to some other questions that I have in my mind because I mean,
00:45:31
Speaker
I'll be very cheesy for a moment, you know? And I will say, you know, for a diamond to be produced, there needs to be a lot of pressure, right? So not to say that I wish this pressure onto anyone, not to, you know, in any way glorify dictatorships or anything that is wrong. But nonetheless, also, and this is basically what you were saying, in all this terrible circumstance, and in all this inhuman society,
00:46:00
Speaker
The element of being human, also of creating something beautiful will always be there. You cannot kill that. You cannot make it stop. It will just continue on regardless as well, no matter the circumstances. And sometimes it will even give birth to something different, something new, something beautiful, something that hasn't been there before and couldn't have been there before if it hadn't been for that pressure.
00:46:25
Speaker
So I am also thinking now that you are saying that in Brazil at the moment, you know, the funding has been cut and all of this, that maybe there is also mixed with the Corona crisis. There is also an opportunity, maybe I'm hoping that as well, not just for Brazil, but for the whole world that maybe there's also an appreciation for art that hasn't been there in a while because people realize
00:46:51
Speaker
you know, this is what gets us through the day. This is what keeps us sane as well, like if it's books, whether it's movies, whether it's music, I mean, what would we do now in quarantine if it weren't for those things, you know? And I think that is something beautiful. Maybe there will also be some way of
00:47:13
Speaker
you know, another appreciation for that. Not that art is not appreciated, but very often I think the value of it is not understood. You know, like we share in everything. I'm one of them as well. You have a flat rate for everything. But also the truth is, it is not easy for artists to make a living.
00:47:30
Speaker
it is very difficult. And maybe I'm hoping there will be, you know, some sort of also another appreciation. But do you think that is at all realistic? Or do you think that's just like, you know, after this, everything will just continue on as usual, it will be like, thank you, okay. Nothing has changed. What is your take? I think we are going to, first of all, have to keep in mind that our main objective or
00:47:59
Speaker
aim is to survive, first of all. You have to survive to pass it, and then I'm sure it's going to shake our culture industry. I think everybody, it was proved now that art is essential, you know. If you think about everybody,
00:48:22
Speaker
and locked inside the house, what they are doing, watching movies, watching series, reading books, listening to music. Art is essential for our escaping from, not escaping from a reality, but to leave their reality with a little bit, a little less,
00:48:44
Speaker
pressure. I think our first thought has to be we have to survive all of it and then I'm sure we are going to make a big revolution.
00:49:01
Speaker
big cultural revolution, because we are going to learn a lot of lessons about it, about being alone, and thinking about what is essential, and thinking about how we can live without superfluous stuffs, and what is really important. So we're going to learn that the borders doesn't matter,
00:49:26
Speaker
you know you are there in Germany and here in Brazil and we are together with the same thoughts and people are going to to have this lesson much and much more of course it will be a lot of xenophobia a lot of racial stuff is in the other direction but I think there are more good people I still believe there are more good people in the world than bad people so we are going to
00:49:55
Speaker
For the first time in history, I think we are going to get together, get good people together and make a real revolution. And I think we are going to pass through a huge crisis since 1929, an economical crisis. But at the same time, we have the resources to pass through it.
00:50:22
Speaker
And I think the cultural industry, it's one of those ways to get out of it because everybody, you have to think about the pure capitalism of demand and need. People need to watch movies, need to watch series, need to read book. And we are going to, we have to look, the government has to look to those
00:50:51
Speaker
that important industry. Do we need more cars? No, we don't need more cars. We need more movies. We need more books. We need more music. And I believe, I hope. Yes, I say yes to that. We don't need more cars. We need more music. We need more...
00:51:07
Speaker
We need more beauty, more stuff that really matters. And, you know, we need more dance. We need more of this. We need more free time. We need, you know, like a whole lot of things. I agree with you entirely. I'm calling out the same revolution. Just saying. Here in the world, I have 19.
00:51:28
Speaker
19 projects written here. 19 different ideas between features and documentaries and things like that. 19. I just need money to write it. That's all. OK, do you want 19 different movies, 19 different YouTube
00:51:53
Speaker
my channel, things like that, okay, I need money to work on that. I could really work only on that. But I have to have some kind of support, you know, to basically... Sort of funding. Yeah, yeah. That's... Enough funding in Brazil has just been cut, you know, to absolute zero. Yeah. Do you think there is a chance in that, that people become a little more inventive? I mean, I know filmmakers are already very inventive anyway.
00:52:23
Speaker
to make ends meet most of the time. I know I am and I have to be and I know a lot of others have to be as well. But do you think that they will maybe even come up with other concepts, like that there's a chance in that as well to some degree?
00:52:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think we are going to do that. But first of all, you also know how do you think of how that would be possible? We are trying to make kind of movement like that because we are getting together, you know, we have.
00:52:54
Speaker
starting having an important writers association here that was never before. Those people, their associations is fighting for our rights. So the artists themselves will move closer together. You think there's something in that?
00:53:13
Speaker
I think so. I think we are going to get together and to try to think those solutions. We have important starting, important writing, screenwriting festivals here, for example. I think the screenwriting is the bait for the movie.
00:53:31
Speaker
industry, especially. The screenwriting is the most important chain, the most important part of that chain. We have to invest on people that are having those ideas to try to figure out the new talent, trying to invest in different ideas, trying to invest. You have to invest and then everything else is going to happen, you know. And now we are going to
00:54:01
Speaker
It happened in the USA when they went on a strike, the writers went on a strike. The writers are the most important part of it. And here we are not very well valued yet. We have a few.
00:54:18
Speaker
very few number of people, of well-prepared people to work on it. And they are the same. But now we are going to start different courses, different books, Brazilian books written, especially from those writers.
00:54:37
Speaker
And I think that people are going to get together and trying to figure out a solution, trying to figure out a way out, trying to figure out that cultural revolution that they're going to face, you know, the people who think the first seed of the story.
00:54:56
Speaker
That is true. Well, that is basically where it starts with an idea and then putting it down and then following through with it. And that is done by a single person. Well, also can be done by more persons. And then the army will come into play, you know?
00:55:12
Speaker
that we discussed earlier on already. But that's yeah, that I think that's, that's, that has also like some, you know, something nice to that to see that, you know, cooperation will then maybe happen in other ways, maybe, you know, the common passion will just maybe unite people on other levels. I do believe, you know, because you spoke about the
00:55:37
Speaker
the revolution earlier that I wholeheartedly support, like if it means more art, more dance for everybody. I do believe...
00:55:48
Speaker
The good people, yes, I don't believe though there are bad people in the sense that I do believe most things are really just a matter also of socialization. And I know that's a very big debate to have, but I think I see that in a lot of places, like I see it everywhere. That's kind of going back to whether a country is stupid for voting for a president. I think so many things come together. And this is, if you believe that every human being has a great story to tell,
00:56:17
Speaker
then that includes everybody, also somebody that is seemingly, maybe at first glance, a bad person. I think to know all is to understand all. I really, really believe in that. And therefore, I would just hope that all the people that have the
00:56:40
Speaker
you know, an interest in doing things together and to think in terms of community that they will develop the power in their art and storytelling to bring everybody together.
00:56:53
Speaker
That is the revolution that I would personally like to see. And I know revolution is a super big word and I'm not taking it entirely seriously. But for what it's worth, yes, a change, a change, a beautiful change. And I think there is a chance of that maybe in this whole
Social Inequality and Apartheid Legacy
00:57:12
Speaker
crisis. This crisis, this actual crisis is going to bring the spotlight for
00:57:21
Speaker
It's just like an x-ray for good and for bad. It's going to show the best part of us and also the worst part of our society. And it's happening now. I can relate to that. And I think it's going to be... We are not in the peak of the crisis yet. It's going to happen a lot of bad things.
00:57:50
Speaker
and in the close future but we have already seen that the selfish people who's going out of their home without needing just to jogging just ride a bicycle because they want because i cannot stay at home okay man nobody likes to stay at home but
00:58:12
Speaker
And there are some people that think they are more special than others and they just break the quarantine. There are people that are keeping the maids, the home working for them because they cannot wash the bathroom.
00:58:29
Speaker
They need someone to make the food. You know, we have a very slavery culture to today here. We are one of the few countries in the world that we have a different room for the maid.
00:58:50
Speaker
I don't know if there's somebody in the world that has it. South Africa has it. South Africa has it as well. Which is why you went there to make a movie, because there are very obvious similarities. Yeah, perfect. We think it's normal to have a place like that, the maid that lives very far away, and people are keeping.
00:59:17
Speaker
those people in the house. The first lady to die of COVID here in Rio was made from a house that her boss went to vacation in Italy. And she came with the COVID, the coronavirus, and infected the maid and the maid died. No, she lived in a favela and probably infected a lot of people there.
00:59:47
Speaker
So this crisis is going to show the best of us, our solidarity, our friendship and everything that we are good at, but also is going to show the worst part of our society. I mean, also you said, and I think in a previous conversation we had, I think this is also something that stayed with me very much.
01:00:12
Speaker
You said that you're not really doing anything like it hasn't inspired any projects for you personally now that have anything to do with COVID-19, but you said what it does because it brings out the social distances.
01:00:31
Speaker
exemplifies the social differences in our societies. A lot of the themes and topics you're working on are already brought a lot more to the surface so that it will maybe be a little easier to address them as well because there will be a general sensitivity to it more than before maybe. Did I say that right? Would you agree with that?
01:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with that. In the very recent past, we had something not as bad as happening now, but we had a very difficult election. It was 2014. It was the most difficult election we had until now, but I used it to say that it shaked our society. And then we started to discover
01:01:24
Speaker
who is the essential part of everybody. Since then, I always were wondering, how can
01:01:40
Speaker
an Arabic, watch through someone and say, okay, you are Sheeta, you are Sunita, and things like that. But now I can tell you that I can see a bosonarist, as we call, coming from one mile away. I can see someone coming and say, oh, I fought for a bosonar. And we have since then, since 2014, we have this kind of
01:02:09
Speaker
segregation we have this kind of people started one started figuring out the way they want to speak and they they found in Bolsonaro the perfect representant of what they they always think about it
01:02:34
Speaker
It's not something new. They just got someone who has courage to say the many bullshits. Sorry, first beep. I'm going to have to beep that. I said crap early on as well. I said it again. Let's see.
01:02:54
Speaker
Let's see if I keep this podcast PG. I'm still not entirely sure about that. Anyway. Okay, because it's difficult to talk about. Very difficult. You've done very well so far though. Just a quick heads up. So far you've done very well.
01:03:17
Speaker
And I think that is it. It's shaking our society. We have a food here that is, I don't know how to explain you, it's with flour, we call it far off after I can send you to research. And when we shake it, the small part of it comes to the surface.
01:03:43
Speaker
I use it to say that here we shake our society far off and now we can see. I put a Wikipedia link in the description as well for far off. Once you come here, you're going to try far off and you will understand what I'm saying. And we shake it and now we really can see for the first time since our colonization,
01:04:13
Speaker
After the colonization, when they put away the slaves here, the end of the slavery, it became a very...
01:04:26
Speaker
dangerous process that became to now that was that is the mixed mixed mixed society sorry and oh you are all the same you don't have raisins but it was completely the opposite we are we are a very racist society and they we passed from centuries and centuries trying to
01:04:56
Speaker
to do something like a makeup to that, you know. And now we have again a possibility to show to everybody, no, we are a racist society.
01:05:10
Speaker
And it was a racist society to be forced to pull sonora to power. Yeah, yeah. And it forced this process. Because when you look at different places that suffered same things that that we have, like United States and South Africa, and lots of places like that, we have a very clear
01:05:34
Speaker
racist society. You know that you are racist because the things are neat is clear for everybody. When you see a place, okay, it's a black restaurant, you know, black person restaurant. Oh, no, this one is white people restaurant. And here we have it very
01:05:58
Speaker
I don't know the word to say that, but it was not very clear. It was a very shade, this race. There was no official segregation like in South Africa.
01:06:11
Speaker
For instance, where you had apartheid and where you had also in the United States, you know, where you had places that were just reserved for whites. But we all know that segregation is not something that has to be official. There can be segregation just in, you know, also like in South Africa still, you know, the truth is also still a lot of the black population is still very poor. And some part of the black population has also gotten rich, no doubt about that. But also generally the white people are still
01:06:40
Speaker
they're not living in the townships, you know, they are usually also better off. So there's segregation there on a financial level that is also on a racial level, for instance. So I suppose that's also something happening in Brazil, right? Yeah, perfect. Just like that. Now we have a
01:06:59
Speaker
We have a spotlight inside this difference as well. Through the Corona crisis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was before, you know, I think just when Bolsonaro was elected. But now it's that spotlight is higher. People are dying in the hospital, more black people here. They are less infected.
01:07:28
Speaker
But they die more. So, okay, what happened? If we have a legacy on this process or this crisis, is that people are going to wake up to see that they are not the elite?
01:07:45
Speaker
You know, we are not the same. It's like an Indian caste, I don't know. We have different positions in our society. And I think the legacy is going to be something like that. OK, I don't belong to Bolsonaro's class. I don't belong to those
01:08:10
Speaker
political class. I don't belong to the same levels as them. They are on a level. I have to get together with my own people. We have to think that we have to fight for our rights. I think our major scene here was thinking that our right was guaranteed. It's not. We have to fight it for it.
01:08:38
Speaker
Every election, every year, every day, you have to fight for it. It's not given to us, not especially for poor people, for Black people. We have to watch it all the time because the first aim of our Brazilian elites, the perfect elite, is to take off the rights of
01:09:03
Speaker
The poor people, the black people, they cannot lose anything. I keep it in mind, into my mind every day. Those guys, they cannot lose, not even a penny, not even one cent. The banks... Every penny counts. Yeah, every penny counts. Yeah, perfect.
01:09:29
Speaker
Do you think those people, those people, I hate saying that. I hate saying that. I hate myself for that actually. I mean, you know, because it's just, it's just adding to this whole, you know, us and them, and that's really not solving anything in our world, I believe. But, you know, sometimes it's difficult to, to speak of it differently. But would you say that
01:09:52
Speaker
You know, like people living in favelas in Brazil, don't you think they knew that they were a different class to Bolsonaro before? I mean, do you think they need a reminder? I mean, it isn't quite obvious. I mean, they live in sometimes really terrible circumstances. There are gang wars going on around them also very often. From all that I know, if I say anything wrong, please correct me.
01:10:15
Speaker
But it's a different reality there. I don't think they needed COVID-19 to remind them of that, right?
01:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. But here we have... I don't want to be right. Don't get me wrong. This was a question, even though I didn't make it sound like a question. But yeah, I just wanted to hear your take on that. Like how that would change things for them, not being confronted with this reality as well. It's a very different society here because we have, for example, I can give you an example in the most part of the favelas.
01:10:54
Speaker
Christian drug dealers, you know, Baptist church and different universal church. I don't know if you know what is it, but they are the drug dealers, the chief of the mob, they are Christian and they don't allow that favela, the African religions, for example.
01:11:21
Speaker
So we have Christian drug dealers, we have people that think they are elite living in favelle, not in favelle, but favelle is a little bit more difficult to have this thought. But there are some people that think
01:11:36
Speaker
the elite represent them. They were forgotten about different governments for a long time. Even in the socialist governments, all kinds of socialist governments. The Fovella people were never
01:12:01
Speaker
lived peace, real peace. The only part of the government that entered in the favela were the police or the army that's a little bit crazy here. You'd only use the army here to get into the favelas.
01:12:18
Speaker
They don't have health care. They don't have basic issues. They don't have water. And the only state, the only government that they know is the police forces. It was
01:12:35
Speaker
Since everywhere, since the slavery, we call sometimes here in the past, and we have until today, we have a place that we call it Kilombo. It's the place where the slaves, when they ran away, they went together and stayed in that place. In the bush, in the middle of nowhere, there was a place that they could reorganize and survive.
01:13:04
Speaker
We still have Columbus to today since that time, the black people that live together in the place. And I used to say that favelas are the modern Columbus, you know, they are apart from the rest of the other part of the society.
01:13:22
Speaker
And it's crazy because those people, they had never, those people, as you said, they... I know, I know. I also do it so often and every time I do it, I regret it anyway. Yeah, they had never a real repentance from them in any kind, in not any sphere. So the first time they had a real one,
01:13:49
Speaker
from someone that was born and raised in Afavella, a real representative of them, it was murdered. That's Marieli.
01:13:58
Speaker
You know, she came from the favela, she was raised there, she knows everything about it, and we went to the politics. She would be running for Senate, from the Senate here. She would become a senator. And she was murdered. You know, so our elites, all the time they are saying to us, don't try it.
01:14:37
Speaker
to date what is going on or to have a complex picture of it because everybody's using the elite. I remember, like I said earlier, Trump is using the elite. Bolsonaro was talking also about the elite. We have to remove them from power, so everybody's throwing that word around.
01:14:46
Speaker
Don't try to come to the other side.
01:14:54
Speaker
making it serve their own agenda. So at some point, you don't know who the elite is, you just know the elite are the bad guys, and we have to get rid of them. And they exist for the ones on the right, just as much as the for the ones on the left, and they serve as anything to justify whatever bullshit now I have to beat myself, then if we want to keep this PG, which I, you know, the chance of that grows slimmer and slimmer. You know, I believe it's very, it's very, it makes it very difficult.
01:15:24
Speaker
And it makes language very powerless as well, to some degree. And they know that, they know that. And I'll say they again. But yeah, these leaders, they know that, who throw words like that around. And it makes it so difficult for us to talk about it then as well, because we fall in the same trap.
01:15:44
Speaker
I think it's also a lack of understanding of our side, you know, for progressist people, because we should learn with them.
01:15:57
Speaker
Yes, I agree entirely. How can we speak easily to those people? I think it's also easy to understand. I can say to someone who thinks that he's elite and ask, okay, if you spend one year without working on the traveling, the money is going to work for you. Oh, no, I have to work. Okay, welcome to the work class.
01:16:25
Speaker
Welcome to the West Wing site. You know, you are a worker. You have to fight for your rights. We had a kind of a different time here that we were wondering how can we achieve working rights and things, something like that. But from three years from now, four years from now,
01:16:56
Speaker
It was like, I don't know, an earthquake. We lost all our working rights, you know, all of it. We lost all of it. Everybody here nowadays, we have to open your own company to work hard for everybody, but most of the people, I had to do that.
01:17:19
Speaker
Okay, do you want to work for me? Okay, take care. You're going to work here, work from this time to that time, every day of the week. Okay, but you have to open your own company. You're not my employee, you have your own company, but you're...
01:17:38
Speaker
Yes, then you're not protected, you have no workers rights. Yeah, not even kind of protection. And if they want to fire me now in the middle of the crisis, they can. They can, but yeah, nothing's going to happen because I'm not there.
01:17:56
Speaker
uh in play employee i'm you know they can do whatever they want with me and okay i signed a paper saying that i have my own company and i i don't belong to them but actually
01:18:10
Speaker
Wow. It's also showing the magnitude of that a little bit. Also, listening to you now, it's just making me... I think the world to some degree, I see that as an opportunity, as a chance as well. We share this crisis because it is a pandemic after all, so it's something that's global. At the same time, also in talking to you, I also realize how
01:18:39
Speaker
different nonetheless, it is in different countries, because here in Germany, where I am right now, we don't really have a political crisis, you know, as much as you can have a political crisis. Obviously, we have different parties, some of them, you know, have a little differing opinions. But actually, in this pandemic, everybody's kind of speaking pretty much with one voice. And they do what seems to me, quite, you know, sensible, wonderful living in a democracy.
01:19:07
Speaker
Yes. That's actually exactly what I'm trying to say. You know, we take that for granted, but we shouldn't because it is a really big privilege to be doing that. And, you know, we also very often get caught up in politics here. But what it shouldn't do is also it shouldn't just show us, oh, we're privileged and we are, you know, we're so well off. Okay, great. Okay. Let's, you know, that's nice. But at least I'm hoping that maybe this can also show us that
01:19:38
Speaker
It's not the same for everybody, but it's also showing that, you know, we are actually in essence in the same boat when it comes to these things. And how can we make it so that we are more sensitive towards each other's needs also in this, and not just in our country, but the world over. When you, the view that I have in this question is something like that.
01:20:05
Speaker
When you are in Germany, I've never been there. I wonder when I can know your country and things like that. But when you... You have to come here and see snow for the first time. Sorry. Of course. We said that, right? That's still totally on. Just saying. Yes, please continue. When you have something that seems like Nazis, the Nazi,
01:20:33
Speaker
When you when happens something like the Nazi party, if there's something like that's happened there that seems a little bit like a Nazi behavior,
01:20:50
Speaker
Yes, our next behavior, yes. Now is a good time to introduce an instrument I'll be using a lot on this show. It's a kind of post commentary to smooth out the many mistakes I'm going to be making along the way. But hey, I did warn you, I said I'd be learning on the job, right?
01:21:09
Speaker
So obviously Leo was talking about the Nazi Party and the Nazi history, and I just didn't understand it at the time, which is quite unfortunate considering my German background. My apologies to you, my dear Leo, and to all of you out there. And with that, let's return to what Leo had to say. Yeah, Nazi behavior, all societies are against it at the same time. You don't allow something like that to happen again. When you go to South Africa,
01:21:39
Speaker
And if something like the Apatite happens just a little bit, everybody going out of the streets. If you ask for us South African, what's the birth of the social problems today, they know Zapatite. Here in Britain, we don't have it. We have it, but we don't know. Our society doesn't know. It's the slavery.
01:22:09
Speaker
So you would say that not a majority in your country would say it like this and put the thing on the wood and say slavery is responsible for a lot of the social indifference and racial indifference that we have. Yeah, it was a process. It was a project of our class. They knew that they had to abolish the slavery because it was abolished in all over the world.
01:22:39
Speaker
the 19th century, and they had to do that because not because of international pressure, because the slaves, the black people here were starting fighting for landing, for work, and they, as our elite doesn't lose, never, not even a penny, not even a cent, they abolished people and never talked about it anymore.
01:23:09
Speaker
So we are still living under that cloud, but we don't know. We don't talk about it. So you mean a majority of people wouldn't say that a lot of problems in Brazil result from slavery?
01:23:25
Speaker
No, they are saying about corruption and lazy people. Most of all, we're going to say about corruption. It's because it's a result of slavery because our elite, the top class, the upper class, they never lose. So the corruption has to do to it. Since when we were a colony here, the police
01:23:54
Speaker
work it only to protect the empire, you know.
01:24:01
Speaker
They work for money from the bakery, has to pay to investigate a robbery. Someone has to pay that. It's in our culture, it's in our blood since the beginning. It has to do to the colony system and the slavery. Everything that you're going to talk as a problem here, you're going to start in that time, you know.
01:24:25
Speaker
The most important thing is always, you know, it's not to understand the symptom, but it's also to understand the cause. And maybe this is where art comes in as well. You know, for change to happen, people
01:24:40
Speaker
We, as people, we have to understand the broader context and also the cause. And sometimes the cause lies very far away in a distant history, actually. Very often, I think it's always very good to go back as far as you can to understand any problem because that will prevent you from coming up with very easy solutions and also very stereotypical ways of looking at things and people.
01:25:08
Speaker
And I think this is also where art can be an amazing mediator to tell those stories and to put it maybe together in a different perspective so that in your particular case now, for instance, you know, people can understand that a lot of their societal structures, the struggles, the racial hatred also, I think it's safe to say, comes from that. And in putting the finger on it,
01:25:36
Speaker
Only then can you also maybe move away or find a new way of approaching it, right? Yeah, the first step of curing a wound, a disease, is to make a diagnostic. Now, as we are living in our pandemic,
01:25:59
Speaker
You have to understand, you have to know that you're suffering that disease. The first step of trying to reach a solution for a problem is knowing the name of the problem, knowing what it causes. And we are not living that now in our society. Brazil became a big wound. What happens if you have a cut in your arm and don't treat it?
01:26:29
Speaker
and became worse and worse and worse, and you have to feel that pain all the time. And now we are feeling that pain, but we, okay, that's no problem at all. I have, we are, Brazil is a cancer called slavery. Today we suffer that, you know, all layers of society,
01:26:53
Speaker
We have to call it, it's a poor translation, but we call it small power. Every time, every opportunity that you have to show your power to someone here in Brazil, you will do it. So it is...
01:27:17
Speaker
It's a result of our slavery process, our slavery days. And we are that disease. We are that problem that's still open and it's filthy and it marks every layer of our society.
01:27:36
Speaker
So now that we have put the finger on it and you have pointed out slavery, also you've taken us on a bit of a journey through political reality in Brazil right now and what it means to be living in Brazil right now. Now, for me, a very interesting question is how do you see your role as an artist in Brazil right now? Where do you put your focus and what makes you carry on with what you are doing?
01:28:07
Speaker
I try to show in my work all the time that we have this open wound. I like to show everybody, for example, if you go to somewhere, Africa taught me that
01:28:30
Speaker
Every time I entered in a place, I count how many black people are there. Doesn't matter if it's in a supermarket or a fancy restaurant or in a bus or the subway. We have an interesting thing here. We have only, I think it's the most ridiculous subway line here, but we have one
01:28:56
Speaker
to the richest part of Rio and the other line for the poor side of it. It's amazing, the shocking reality. Both lines go to downtown.
01:29:17
Speaker
And if you take the subway to one side, at the end of the five o'clock in the afternoon or six o'clock, if you take the subway to one direction, most of the people inside of it were going to be black. If you go to the other direction, everybody inside the subway is going to be white. It's amazing that the Africa taught me, opened my eyes for it because I went there to different places.
01:29:46
Speaker
there's no officially the apartheid anymore, but it is kind of a social apartheid. Black people cannot afford to go to some places. Yes, it doesn't have to be official policy. You know, that's also what Malcolm X said, for instance, that I found that very interesting when he visited one of the New York, you know,
01:30:09
Speaker
you know, what he called it, suburbs. At the time, I don't remember exactly when it was, but he also said, you know, in New York, you think you are so much, you know, more liberal than, you know, the people in the South and Alabama and so on. But look around you. This is an entirely white neighborhood. There's one black person around.
01:30:28
Speaker
So you can't pretend all you want that you are better, but you are not. And he really put the finger also on something that happens too often where you're so self-righteous and you just don't see the splinter in your own eye.
01:30:45
Speaker
And so you don't have to have official policy. A lot of other things come into place, economic, politics, and so on and so on. And very often it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The people that have little, they will struggle and will remain to have little. And the ones that have a lot, they will have a lot because capital beats income all the time.
01:31:10
Speaker
And yes, and this is how you can also make racial segregation a continuing and existing problem, of course. So what you're describing in South Africa is nonetheless something that happens the world over as well. I think it's not always color, but it is not always race, but it is very often also income, just very often they are also connected. Yeah, we have here, we can say that poor people lives in the favelas, but most of them are black people.
01:31:41
Speaker
We have different kind of police here. I study very much this kind of relationship. I have some friends that are policemen and they taught me a lot and I study a lot of it. We have different policies.
01:32:01
Speaker
from different places in our city. You know, we have a police that just look like an army. They have tanks, they have helicopters, they go inside the favela and shoot from the sky.
01:32:19
Speaker
I've seen that on TV and I don't even want to imagine what that must feel like to actually have them march into your neighborhood. My second movie is a short documentary. It's about it. I like that movie a lot because it was my second one and I made it completely alone. It was not even three people, it was only me.
01:32:45
Speaker
And nothing even resembling an army, basically. You were like just karate kid, like winging it himself. Yeah, something like that. And it was very, very nice experience. And it shows the different way of it. I showed in that movie a recording from inside a helicopter from the police shooting a car.
01:33:13
Speaker
at night in a favela. And the other side, I put a friend of mine who was under arrested in an operation that was similar to that, not that one, but in the past in 1994, he was under arrested just because he was in a favela. Police came inside and start shooting. He was shot by a machine gun twice.
01:33:44
Speaker
And he went to the hospital and then the guy who shot him decided that he was the boss of the place and he was 10 years, no, 90 years in jail.
01:33:59
Speaker
Just because he was in the favela, he was not carrying again, he was not with drugs, he was with no, he just ran. Because he was standing in the way of a bullet, basically. Yeah, because he was black, he's black, and he decided to run because people started shooting, they arrived shooting. Which anybody would do if you see the police come into a favela, you have to fear for your life, right? So nobody would do it. It happens every day here.
01:34:28
Speaker
And the policemen, they have already a kit, a small kit with a gun and some drugs and a radio to put in the hand if they get it as a student. Okay, let's put this guy as a bad guy, put his gun in his hand and put these drugs in his pocket and it's okay. They have the kit already. It's terrible, man. It's easy due to the slavery at the same time.
01:34:59
Speaker
Well, they cannot come to my neighborhood here or near Oklahoma or in Copacabana and shoot people on the street. They would never do that. They would never do that with the risk of getting some important guy, rich guy, something like that.
01:35:18
Speaker
But in the favela, it happens every day. The best possible idea that I have of life in a favela is the film... Oh, Brazilian film, amazing film. What is it called? Something... City of God. What was
Impact of 'Right There' on Police Awareness
01:35:38
Speaker
it? City of God. Thank you. Wow. It's amazing. It's one of my favorite films of all time.
01:35:45
Speaker
It is an amazing film and an incredibly sad film.
01:35:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's perfect. It's a perfect movie because it shows since the beginning what happened with people. People were removed to that place. It's wonderful. It's almost a documentary. So also from you who know what reality is like in favelas, you would say that that film is just an absolutely apt representation of what is going on there and what life feels like in the favelas.
01:36:18
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, it's amazing. It's just like it happened. It's based on a book. It's a perfect one. The only difference is that the man who wrote it is white, actually, but he lived in the favela. He knows everything about it. But it's perfect. I read the book also. It is amazing. It's almost a documentary. Wow.
01:36:47
Speaker
I that just again, you know, because I think I just want to quickly revisit that it brings it back into my mind, like, you know, doing making things and making films that communicate a reality to people that don't live it and also speak to people that don't always share your opinion. I wanted to go back on to the story of your film right there. You also showed it to a large part of the police force.
01:37:17
Speaker
which is, I think, in essence, pointing out something very important, namely that with your art, it is very easy to reach the people who think the same as you anyway. I think the goal of anything, if you want to create and want to put something out there that is important to you, I think you should always be actually mainly be addressing the people that might not share your opinion.
01:37:42
Speaker
And I think you have done exactly that. Can you tell us a little more about that? How you how you did that with right there and a little bit of the context of that? Yeah, when I'm a friend of Berto, the guy, the policeman, since 19, since 2006. And I learned a lot with him and we were we became very good friends. We think about making things together all the time.
01:38:11
Speaker
And once I told him the police works based on prejudice. Then the main character of the policeman here, I don't think is only here, but anywhere in the world is prejudice. You have to look at someone. Like racial profiling as well or profiling general, right? Yeah, not only it's most based on racial
01:38:40
Speaker
an issue, but you have to, they have to watch someone in an airport on a road or in the street and say, okay, this is a bad guy. I know this behavior is from a bad guy. I have to stop him. He's the main character of a policeman. You have to, he was shocked. He was okay that you're talking, that's why you're saying it makes sense.
01:39:09
Speaker
I didn't realize that I work with prejudice. Prejudice were my first instinct. And I think it has to do with all the human race. You look at someone and you think that you know that person at the same time.
01:39:29
Speaker
I know someone walking. I know him. I know who he is. Yes, we all have prejudice in us, I believe. Absolutely. I'm just guessing here. I guess that is probably also something biological, maybe the fight-or-flight thing. Maybe that is some biological
01:39:52
Speaker
response mechanism to some degree as well to suss out our environment and to judge it as fast as possible. I think we all share that. I think it's very good if you're very much aware of that though. And this brings me to something friends of mine said the other day, which is still staying with me. They said, don't trust or don't believe everything you think.
01:40:15
Speaker
And I think that's excellent. So because as long as you keep that in mind, it will help you to check your prejudices at least and maybe keep them at bay as much as you can. Yeah. And then you can move over and bridge over, you know, and then you can do something like you did and show this movie to people where you had also prejudices towards them because they were policemen.
01:40:40
Speaker
And nonetheless, you decided to take your movie and to show it to them and created another dialogue, a new dialogue that otherwise wouldn't have been possible.
01:40:49
Speaker
I totally agree that I am used to say that I could never be a lawyer, a court lawyer. For example, I'm addicted to court movies. Don't become that. Just continue making films. Yeah, yeah. I am addicted to court movies. I love John Grisham.
01:41:12
Speaker
books. And I love this kind of tribunal or good things. But every time Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's wonderful. And all the time that I watch a movie or read a book like that, and it's Tony, the lawyer of the
01:41:34
Speaker
the man who was arrested there to say, okay, this has happened, something like that, and that, I agree with him. And then the prosecutor, oh, but I don't know very much about racial issues. I agree with you as well, you know, so I'm all the time open to listen to different points of view. I could never be a lawyer or a jury, something like that.
01:42:03
Speaker
We miss both of you. What can I do? Yes, I can relate to that.
Art as a Dialogue Opener
01:42:11
Speaker
Actually, another great book, just because I'm thinking about it, if you haven't read it yet, because we also spoke with John Grisham in the chamber and also racial segregation and so on, is To Kill a Mockingbird. I only really read that a year ago. Have you read that?
01:42:29
Speaker
Which one? To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. You should read it. It's a fantastic book. You should read it. It's a great book. It's a fantastic book. While we're on the topic, even, I mean, it is, you know, racial hatred in the United States, but it's a fantastic book. It's really very, very nice.
01:42:56
Speaker
I think a lot of people hate it because they had to read it in school. And a lot of the times when you read books in school, you don't have the fondest memories. I was lucky enough not to read it in school. So I liked it very much. Harper Lee. Harper Lee is her name.
01:43:11
Speaker
I'll put it out there for you. I also put it in the description. Wow, this will be a long list of show notes. Anyway, I have to put in an extra shift for that. All right. All right. No, but I really admire that. I really, really mean that. I really admire you going to the police and showing the film to make them aware of a problem and therefore help in the dialogue and, you know, identify a problem. And I think there is a lot in that. And I do believe
01:43:39
Speaker
art can help to mediate in a big way. I think that is one of its main things, you know, it should be doing that, like keep a conversation going and open a dialogue. And you did exactly that and really in a wonderful way. How was the reaction in the police force after showing the film to them?
01:44:00
Speaker
I'm shown in a congressman, a policeman congress in the Northeast here. It was an amazing experience, actually. Because, as I said, I didn't want to protect one side or another. I just had it in my mind. Policemen, they have the prejudice as a main character.
01:44:28
Speaker
So that's why I'm going to lead my work in that direction. It was amazing. It was well received there. And I think it was, it was very, I had a very good compensation of being able to show it from northeast to south of Brazil that was very,
01:44:54
Speaker
It's a very complicated area here, a very racist place. It's a very white place from Italian and German immigration that became
01:45:10
Speaker
The worst part of our elite here, they live in small towns and they are all very close to their community. They think they are the upper class, but they are not, they are workers, as I am. But right there was a festival there.
01:45:34
Speaker
And I couldn't be there because it was a complicated time here, and I couldn't be there. But the organizer of the festival, he told me that it was one of the most well-received movies in the festival. I was very happy. And I was shown in a favela, and I was shown here in a university.
01:46:03
Speaker
I was really, really proud of it. A lot of different people watched it. Only one guy in my premiere here, the guy told me I didn't know the guy.
01:46:20
Speaker
A friend of mine took taking him there in the premiere, and the guy told me, I love the movie, but I thought there was a lack of hate on it. You should put a little bit more hate.
01:46:36
Speaker
Wow, that's an interesting feedback. Everybody who knows you would be like, that's not really what Leo does. This movie that I'm writing, this screenplay,
01:46:53
Speaker
I think I put a little bit of hate on it. I think we need it. We need it as a society in some point, you know, because we have this slavery and we left it pass away. We had a dictatorship and we just led it away. That phrase that the guy told me, I think it became a little bit sense in the fiction.
01:47:18
Speaker
You know, because in fiction, Aristotle told us about the catharsis. I don't need to kill someone, but my character can. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think that's a very strong concept, obviously, in all of us. Yeah, and we have here. If Aristotle said it, I mean, it's got to be true, right? Yeah.
01:47:41
Speaker
Who's going to mess with old Aristotle? I mean, really. He said that we need it. We need to watch those kinds of things so as not we do those things. I do actually agree with that. I do actually agree with that. In that sense, art can also be involved for things, absolutely.
01:48:01
Speaker
So I'm putting a lot of hate in that new job that's about mafia, Brazilian mafia, that has to do with military dictatorship and things like that. So I think I'm going to put a lot of hate on that. The way you said that and the laughter afterwards was quite convincing, I have to say. I was imagining you with your cat sitting on your lap now and you're stroking its head just ever so slightly.
01:48:32
Speaker
That image is going to stay. That image is going to stay. Just saying. I cannot unsee that. It's very interesting. It'll be very interesting to see that. I will, yes, please let me know when that's done. I know you have like, what do you say, 19 screenplays lying around at the moment? I've got 19 ideas. Wow. That's a lot. I mean, you're an idea machine. No.
01:49:03
Speaker
Yeah, I want to live for it. I want to live forever because I want to make all these films. That's motivation for your own life extension. You see, there you go. I have too much lying around. I can't go.
01:49:20
Speaker
It's all to be done. So can I just quickly ask you again, because I got lost on me a little bit. What was your reaction at the police congress when you showed the film, specifically? What did I say there? I mean, I suppose, of course.
01:49:41
Speaker
No, it was very good because I show a different kind of policeman. This friend of mine, Berto, he was very good between commons. He was very well trained to the drug war here. But he was tired. He was tired of it.
01:50:04
Speaker
And he's shown in the movie, he started a different program here. Only all that he does is to go to the universities and schools and companies and to talk, to have a conversation. He created this program, the prevention program inside the police. It was very good for them to see that they came to a different
01:50:29
Speaker
You know, he was not a special agent. He just broke the inside structure. He created a new thing. The movie and this program that he created, they proved that we can
01:50:47
Speaker
create new and different things from inside. That's why we had a good feedback on this Congress. That's amazing. That is just a perfect example of how
01:51:03
Speaker
You know, a film, a piece of art can really also make such a practical difference in outlook and in scope of problems. And yeah, I take my hat off to you for that. That's that's an amazing achievement. Really. Thank you. That's any artist can ever hope for to get as a feedback from any piece of art that they're making. So well done. Really mean it. Thank you.
01:51:29
Speaker
Thank you. Now that we've talked about all of this and what is going on, how do you see this will play out?
Pandemic's Influence on Societal Focus
01:51:40
Speaker
Let's stay a little bit just with the Corona crisis. Also, how do you think, what is your outlook? What is your projection of that? Let's say in the near future, a year, two, three, four, five, let's say five.
01:51:59
Speaker
Okay. I think we are going to enter in a different era that we are going to worry about only about the essential things in every area, you know, what's important for you, what's really important for you and for our society to work, to improve, to go forward as a society.
01:52:31
Speaker
We are a very selfish society in general, until now. And I really think that we are going to reveal, we are going to rethink how we are living. And we are going to start thinking about what is really essential.
01:52:57
Speaker
something like 40 days at home without going out. Why do I really need, why do I need a car? Why do I need, you know, I need wine, beer, food. Why do I really need a new, I need this car in my garage? No, I don't need it.
01:53:23
Speaker
Do I really need new fancy clothes? No, I don't need it. I think that's what's going to happen. It's going to change our focus. Yeah, it's going to change our focus as a society in general. But I think in our area, in the cultural area, we are going to improve a lot.
01:53:46
Speaker
How? We are going to rethink what we are doing. I think we have to think about making things that have sense to society. The challenge of making something happen will increase the level of the productions.
01:54:08
Speaker
because as people are watching lots of cultural issues, you're going to watch movies, series and things like that, a lot of people making those things, we have to improve our speech, our way of writing, our way of production, because only the best things are going to be seen.
01:54:32
Speaker
I like it a lot. It's a little bit scary because I know that I'm not that good yet. I hope so that we here in Brazil specifically, we find a way to produce our movies. We had a lot of stories to tell. We had a lot of different layers of our society to show to the world.
01:54:53
Speaker
And I really think that we are going to increase the level of production because we have to tell those stories, but we have to tell those stories in a very good quality way to be in the same level of the best production in the world.
01:55:17
Speaker
So basically also, you know, this is how sometimes opposites work with each other, like because of the state that Brazil is in, it is also generally a motivation to keep on creating your work, right? It is connected, I suppose. Yeah, completely, totally. If you just saw a happy society where everything is fine,
01:55:37
Speaker
you probably would also be a little less motivated to find the stories that tell something of an alternative, you know, possible alternative reality or an unknown reality. Yeah. Yeah. If we had a preferred society, what kind of story they are going to tell? I think I like to watch The Crown, for example.
Storytelling and Understanding Perspectives
01:56:03
Speaker
the Netflix series. I love The Crown. Yeah, but they're in open doors here. What a great series. Anyway, yes. Well done, very well written. I mean, very well written, very well told, like the production value of that series. It's all like, you know, like movie stuff. It's just so good. So good.
01:56:24
Speaker
But if you look at the issue of each episode, there was one entire episode that they were talking about the name of the guy. What surname you're going to? Because they don't have fun, not even a problem. They don't have problems, you know? I like to watch the royal family, and I can imagine the Charles
01:56:54
Speaker
waking up every day and imagine, oh, is this today my mother died? Oh no. The only thing that the guy
01:57:03
Speaker
wonders is his mother to die. It's crazy. You know, this is a very interesting closing point because this whole time now we've really been and I think good that we did, but we've been talking about poverty, we've been talking about racial segregation and so on.
01:57:27
Speaker
And this is the magnificence of the series as well. And I realized that when I watched it, and it brings me back something that I said earlier in another conversation to you as well. Well, the first failed podcast that never made it. I mean, everybody. That you know, like, when people are happy, they're all happy in the same way.
01:57:49
Speaker
But all families are unhappy in different ways. I think that's the opening of Kosto's Anna Karina, which is just me showing off here. Very, very big time.
01:58:04
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But that's exactly what it does. You know, when you watch that series, it's a life of privilege. It's a life of, you know, financial wealth. They actually have no material worries. And nonetheless, throughout the series, you feel that their problems are also justified.
01:58:25
Speaker
Like you feel, you never shake your head and you're like, yeah, those royals, you know, I mean, really, I mean, just get a grip. I mean, what problems do you really have? That would also obviously be a terrible approach to any story to tell. But this is the magnificence of it. And I think this is what I take away from it. Like it is also very easy to just judge the privileged and to judge the wealthy people. And I think judgment is never good. It will never get us anywhere.
01:58:53
Speaker
It is just in seeing the differences and pointing them out and giving visions of how that can be improved, which is much more helpful than just sitting there and pointing your finger and saying, yeah, you guys, what you're doing is terrible. If what they're doing is terrible, yes, say it, but don't do it in a way where you put them all in one drawer and you don't differentiate anymore.
01:59:15
Speaker
And this is what that series really brought home to me in a very, very big way. And that's why I like it very much. And that's why I recommend to everybody to watch it. I think this is a nice kind of circle now that we've made in this podcast also. Very much. Perfect, man. Yeah.
01:59:34
Speaker
today. We could speak for hours. I have so much fun talking to you, Leo. But I will now release you into the night, even though I think it's evening, it's night here.
01:59:49
Speaker
Have you finished that caipirinha by the way? Oh, I still hear ice somewhere in my glass. You just had the last cup of water really, right? Hoping there would still be some sort of alcohol in there, right? Some little bit of taste. Did you get any or was it really just water?
02:00:09
Speaker
It was comforting and I did it all of it. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, Leo. It was a wonderful journey with you tonight. I learned a lot.
02:00:25
Speaker
And I hope I'll have you back again sometime on the show with a new film. Thank you very much, man. It was a pleasure for me. I learned a lot with you also. And of course, sorry for my poor English, but I think you can understand. I really hope we can talk again very soon.
02:00:54
Speaker
Thank you, Leo. Thank you so, so much. This was the very first episode of the Yellow Van Stories. Thank you so much for listening and coming along on its first ride.
02:01:05
Speaker
If you like what you hear and you want to chip in a little bit of petrol money, you can go to patreon.com forward slash yellow van stories. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode, keeping your seat and cooling that imaginary beverage of your choice. Until then, stay healthy, keep loving, and always remember, we roll in this together. Now take it away, Jim.
02:01:31
Speaker
It took a long, long time From the past rise to the fallen skies But unless we're here and the world is ready for new ideas And I know my attitude disturbs you and so it should And I know my fantasies are troubling to those like you
02:02:04
Speaker
Well, my message is clear He lovin' in the face of fear
02:02:24
Speaker
Your place where colitis goes I break a shame There's a dream I breathe Gone loving man and those in need And I know my attitude disturbs you And so I should And I know my better scenes I'm travelling to those like you
02:02:58
Speaker
Just
02:03:29
Speaker
It's the
02:04:22
Speaker
All you stand is for the rest