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Oh, City of God; The movie with the Black, sun-kissed skined boys of Rio’s favelas. I instantly fell in love with it the first time I saw it. I now own the original movie and the City of Men TV series. The most life changing thing the original movie did for me…it taught me that black people were in South America. I grew up in the Midwest in the 80s/90s. The lack of diversity coupled with poverty led to my ignorance. I thought everybody south of the border was Mexican.
It lit this fire in me to learn more about the experiences of Black people in South America. I learned that they got over here just like us. The thread of commonality is Slavery. And there were more slaves in South America than in North America. We may speak different languages, but our stories start out the same.
The thread of commonality among the cast of the original movie is the favela and their attempt to escape poverty. For the most part success was fleeting for the majority of the cast. Berenice, played by Roberta Rodrigues has struggled, but finally found work on TV soap operas. Lil Ze, played by Leandro Firmino, has struggled to find work in which he wasn’t typecast, but has come into his own as an actor and is now a family man with the chocolatest, chubby cheeks little boy you ever wanted to see. Blacky, played by Rubens Sabino was jailed before the film debuted and still struggles to support himself. He sales peanuts on buses and has dreams of acting again and pursuing a music career. Rocket, played by Alexandre Rodrigues, is wonderfully exuberant and comedic and has found work in television here and there.
The Tender Trio: Goose, played by Renato de Souza, is an auto mechanic. Shaggy, Jonathan Haagensen does theatre. Clipper played by Jefechander Suplino, got caught up in the drug game and has since disappeared. His mother has not filed a missing persons report with the police and believes that he is still alive, but in hiding. Angelica, played by Alice Braga,has found constant work and even audition for a Will Smith movie. Felipe Paulino, who played the little boy who go shot in the foot by Li l Ze is now a bell boy at a hotel in Rio and is hoping to get back into acting as a means to support his daughter. As you know, Lil Dice and Steak Frites went on to play Acerola and Laranjinha in the TV series City of Men. Douglas Silva and Darlan Cunha have been working on television and Silva is the first Black Brazilian to be nominated for an International Emmy and is the father of like the world’s cutest baby girl. Like, seriously she is adorable.
Knock Out Ned’s fine self, played by Seu Jorge, seems to have had the most success of the cast. He an acclaimed musician and superstar with impressive stateside movie credits. He still looks quite handsome and lives in LA. Check out some of his music here.
An issue each actor in the movie spoke about during the documentary, was being paid very little money in retrospect. As they were all children and young adults, receiving between 3,000-10,ooo Reis (1,000-3,500 USD) seemed like a lot of money at the time, but in most cases it was quickly spent, leaving them destitute and running back to the streets. The shock of being famous and traveling the world for the film and then coming back home to poverty was an eye opener for most of the main cast members.
Carla Osrio, one of the producers of City of God: 10 Years Later, was in attendance at the Pan-African Film Festival and during the Q&A she said she has formed a distribution company to work on getting both movies and other titles out of Brazil distributed to portuguese speaking countries like Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, and Guinea-Bissau.
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