"As Morrinho became well know in Rio

and internationally, more people wanted

to capture this amazing process of play.

Thus started TV Morrinho as a way to

gather all the various media that have

emerged from the project. Morrinho is famous for their willingness to collaborate

with other NGOs, international students,

filmmakers, and journalists. I know because

every June and July I take graduate

students from New York to Rio for a two month course in human rights and media,

and several of my students have made

collaborative films with Morrinho.

In the last ten years, a sizable collection

of short films has documented Morrinho.

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The shorts cover the beginning of the

project, their many exhibitions and travels

abroad, the collaborative process of inviting

other youth into the construction of

exhibitions, and people’s reaction to seeing

the artistic process of building a miniature

favela from scratch. But the most

interesting films, at least for me, are the

ones that document the games and the

sense of play inside this miniature world.

There’s something magical about seeing

one these films that resemble small

theater pieces. It’s like a puppet show,

where we see the hands manipulating

the figures but there’s a willing sense of

disbelief and we surrender to the drama.

Morrinho workshops ideas with filmmakers

and they even storyboard the narratives.

But during the filming, a sense of

play takes over and improvisation guides

the framework for the piece." -

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Peter Lucas (The New School)