Jogo Aberto Documentary Movie

The Jogo Aberto documentary movie aims to bridge practitioners from different backgrounds in their quest to learn Capoeira and master its potentialities as a tool towards education, community development, and social inclusion. After the first edition the bulk of the material will be subtitled and posted in the 4CapoeiraThoughts youtube channel as an open resource for the Capoeira community. In order to accomplish the project more quickly and embrace a wider range of languages subtitles we adopted an ‘open-source’ approach. If you would like to participate in the project, at this stage we are looking for people to help with transcriptions and translations. So far the project is dealing with English and Portuguese transcriptions, after this first moment we will be able to translate into other languages.

We filmed over 20 hours of interviews, talks, classes and rodas, and I received some very interesting statements from Mestres Cláudio Danadinho (co-founder of Senzala group), Mestre Angoloeiro (student of Mestre Bimba who also have large experience with other Mestres and Capoeira environments), Mestre Skisito (author of important Capoeira books), and Professor Vila Isabel (comrade of journey and social engagement). The project will possibly include other relevant statements as I travel around before the end of the production.

Within a horizontal and open-minded framework a diverse range of matters were raised by instructors and students. To mention a few, participants discussed: a) matters of authenticity between Brazilian and non-Brazilian practitioners; b) sexual harassment; c) couple relationships born within groups; d) the difficulties women face in carry on practising meanwhile forming families; and e) the transformation of a wise and organic folk culture in a commodity during its spreading process.

Physical, emotional, and mental interaction forged new bonds meanwhile strengthening old ones. All this was also very well captured by our filming crew; many thanks to Graham and Terry.

The documentary project will take a while to be finished. We count with your patience and collaboration to make it available to the worldwide Capoeira community as soon as possible. For more information about the participant’s profile, the aim of the event, and our guests please check Jogo Aberto Message Board.

Axé!

Eurico