Jonathas de Andrade’s Olho da Rua (Out Loud)

May Makki: How did you first become acquainted with the Theatre of the Oppressed and how did you become interested in using it as a framework or a tool?

Jonathas de Andrade: I like to think of a film as a starting point for a group of people to have experiences in front of the camera. From this filmic pretext, we can tell stories of how these people live, relate, and resist challenges, which can inspire us. These starting points may be real or fictional, but they are steeped in bodily truths, and in the terrain of representation, theater and fantasy, various documentary elements are imposed, and the camera becomes a rich and revealing stage of humanity. In my past projects, I’ve used various setups and points of departure.

For example, in 2012 I made a film called The Uprising with a group of carters in Recife. As farm animals are prohibited anywhere in Recife, anyone who gets around by horse is rendered invisible from the point of view of the law. The context of filmmaking (and obtaining a filming permit) allowed me to organize a cart race in the city center, to celebrate the existence of the carts and horsemen by having them take the city by storm. In 2016, I made a film O Peixe (The Fish) with a group of fishermen, proposing that they hug a fish in front of the camera. Although it was the first time they did so, the film resembles a documentary, which makes the gesture appear to be part of a ritual that touches on respect and the contradictions between man and nature.

After I worked on a film called Jogos Dirigidos (Directed Games) (2019) with a deaf community from Várzea Queimada, who invented their own language in the northeast of Brazil, audience members started contacting me to ask, “Are you thinking about the Theater of the Oppressed?” I hadn't made that connection before, but the idea that theater, acting, and art can be social articulators in the direction of generating autonomy and political awareness is very powerful. By playing a role that has to do with our own social place, we can rearticulate the way we understand our own history, see ourselves inside and see ourselves outside, and this is as powerful as it is inspiring.

When I started thinking about Olho da Rua, it was the middle of the pandemic and I was commissioned by the Fondazione Between Art Films to create a film with a sense of urgency. At the time, we were living under an outrageous government. Homelessness in the streets was increasing day by day, and the affected people had no access to masks, food, or vaccines while our own president was denying the efficacy of vaccines. It was the worst scenario I’ve seen in my lifetime. So I decided that the most urgent film I could make at that moment was to do a proposition with this group of people.

With assistance from social services and NGOs working to support people experiencing homelessness, I invited a group of one hundred people to perform together with me during a weekend in a public square in Recife, where I'm based. This was the film with the most delicate human condition that I had ever made, and already in the planning I felt ethically challenged to redouble the listening, the care with the acting, and even the idea of having a script, which would be more of a guide than something to be followed to the letter. The process itself had to involve redoing and readapting. The Theater of the Oppressed made me more aware that a proposition or a script had more power as a point of departure rather than something to be followed strictly. And that's how Olho da Rua started happening.

What’s the significance of the public square?

I like to think that public space is a place of great power and energy. People look at each other. They check each other out in the street, which is a place for encounters, parties, protests, intimate conversations. So the street is alive and it's also a refuge for people experiencing homelessness. So, the film departs from the idea that the public square could represent spaces of a home.

We created a kitchen, a living room, and a garden where people could hang out. Those spaces were the initial setting for the action. But as I continued to follow the initial guide, several participants interrupted me with questions, “When can I speak to the camera?” I hadn't imagined any moments in which people spoke to the camera, but the requests continued. So I decided that everyone would gather in the middle of a circle, look into the camera, and say their message. And it was so powerful. It taught me that working with the desires of the participants being filmed is the best way to guide an experience of a film whose script is alive and reinvented at every moment, collectively. Taking into consideration the motivations of those who are participating changes the direction of the piece in a very vivid way. I heard feedback from people who saw the film who said, are these really homeless people? This feedback confirmed to me that when the camera gets close and has a close, attentive look, it is possible to create an image that reaches out to the individual and collective power of each person, that is not fetishizing or exploitative of a condition.