Oscar, Emmy and BAFTA award-winning director and producer Jon Blair takes us into the favelas of Rio de Janeiro for a close look at the running battle between the drug lords who control entire areas of the city and the police. Frequent and deadly police raids have done little to either stem the flow of drugs through these neighborhoods, or diminish the daily threat of violence from the traffickers. Blair gains remarkable access to the drug traffickers—many of whom talk plainly and openly about the business they are engaged in as well as about the police, whom they see as exploitative and corrupt. The drug lords see the police as the predators upon the residents of the favelas, and cast themselves as the providers and protectors of the impoverished neighborhoods in which they live. In the midst of the violence is Pastor Dione “Jonny” dos Santos, a former drug trafficker turned minister, who works to broker peace agreements between and within the drug gangs, and unceasingly exhorts the gangsters to put down their guns, turn away from violence and embrace a religious life of service. Of particular focus is Pastor Jonny’s relationship with Juarez “Spiderman” Mendes da Silva, one of the more powerful and feared drug lords, and one who has vowed to quit the gang life to serve God. But Mendes da Silva hasn’t put down his guns yet, and as Pastor Jonny moves through the favelas preaching peace, one begins to wonder if Spiderman is going to follow through on his promise to relinquish his powerful position in the drug trade.

Filmmaker Q&A

  Introduce yourself:
It is difficult to know quite where to begin when introducing myself. I am originally a political exile from South Africa and my childhood there in the ‘50s and ‘60s has certainly been one of the most important things in making me the person I am today. I was part of the privileged white minority there but from an early age I found apartheid intolerable so at the age of 16, once I had been drafted into the apartheid army, I left the country. As a journalist and filmmaker I have had an especial sensitivity to stories about injustice, human rights abuse, poverty, and war and the victims of these horsemen of the apocalypse. These themes have permeated much of my work, although you would be stretched to find them in the comedy that I have also done!

I have been working in journalism, film and television for more than 35 years now which I find amazing as I still feel like a new-comer though I do get called a “veteran” every now and again which is a bit disturbing. I guess that is as much because I have been lucky on the awards front in winning a few of the majors in our field…an Oscar, a couple of Emmys, an IDA Distinguished Achievement Award, a British Academy Award, a Cable ACE and even a Grammy! But anyone who reads this is I hope smart enough to know that these all count for nothing as you are only ever as good as your next film. 

What inspired this film?   How did you find your subjects?
I was lucky. While recce’ing another project in Brazil I ran into Tom Phillips who is a brilliant young English journalist working as a foreign correspondent in Rio de Janeiro, and he then introduced me to Douglas Engle, an American photojournalist also based in Rio. Together they had been developing a relationship with a backstreet evangelical pastor in one of Rio’s most violent slums over the previous year or so. Pastor Jonny trod a difficult path with the gangsters who control most of Rio’s slums, trying to persuade them to turn away from their violent lives. As a former gangster himself he understood their lives and in his new vocation he was quite literally “dancing with the devil”. Through him Tom and Douglas had gained the trust of the gangsters themselves and when they told me of this relationship I felt that what they had represented a unique opportunity to make a documentary such as had never been seen before.  

As it turned out I was right: no one has ever filmed Rio’s top drug lords openly, without disguises or blurring or any other device to hide their identities, and no one has ever shown such an intimate portrait of gang life in this city where more than 1,000 people die each year at the hands of the police in a bloody urban civil war. How many more people the gangsters themselves kill is anyone’s guess.

At the same time as we became trusted by the gangsters, we developed a close relationship with a unit of Rio’s elite drug squad who also gave us unrestricted access to their lives and their operations. This too had never happened before. As a result DANCING WITH THE DEVIL is quite unlike any other documentary, or even fictional portrayal of the underbelly of one of South America’s most violent (and beautiful) cities.  In our film I believe we portray a world of moral ambiguity where an audience’s pre-suppositions are thrown into confusion, and where from one moment to the next issues of right and wrong are open to doubt. During the making of the film several of our subjects were killed. Were they victims or did they bring their death upon themselves? You have to decide, but one thing is sure: the answers are not simple. 

What were some of the biggest challenges/surprises?
Rio’s drug lords and their gangs are some of the most heavily armed individuals in the world. They impose their rule of law in their kingdoms with fear and death and they carry automatic weapons openly in the streets. To fight them, the police are also heavily militarized and operations into the favelas can sometimes involve up to 1,000 policemen armed with automatic weapons and traveling in armored personnel carriers. Death on the streets is virtually a daily occurrence.

Working in this world was extremely dangerous. The entire crew had to be equipped with body armor and ballistic helmets and although I have covered a number of war zones over the years on three continents, I do not believe I have ever been at greater risk than I was in one of the great tourist capitals of the world.

During two police operations that we filmed we were fired on with automatic weapons and during one, a policemen was shot very near to us and later died from his wounds.

On another occasion part of the crew were given a tour of his territory by one of Rio’s most wanted men who is a central character in our film. As part of this adventure he insisted on driving them at close to 80 miles per hour along the sidewalk between a brick wall and the lampposts.

To say that making this film was a challenge would, I think, be something of an understatement. On the plus side, I hope that the result feels immediate and intimate in a way that no previous film has shown. 

Who are some of your favorite filmmakers?
Oooh, that’s a difficult one. For every person that occurs to me I then think of three more. Maybe I will answer that by simply saying that one of my favorite sayings came from the French director Louis Malle who said something along the lines that he had started his career believing that to be successful he needed to be as complicated as possible, and that over the years he spent his career seeking simplicity, which was much more difficult to achieve.  

What is your all time favorite documentary?
Pass. I don’t have an all time favorite, just lots of films that I have enjoyed and a few that are really special 

What other projects are in the pipeline?
I am currently in post-production with a doc for HBO and after that, I wish I could be sure!

Why did you become a filmmaker?
As a way of telling stories more graphically than I could in print 

What are some of your creative influences?
I beg, borrow and steal from wherever I see something that looks good, that touches me in some way, or that seems to make my storytelling more effective. I am not interested in trickery or being a virtuoso, and I believe that nothing beats a good story simply told. 

Did you go to film school?
NO 

What do you shoot on?
I started my career shooting on film but budgets being what they are I have not used film since the mid 1990s unfortunately. I have never been a fan of videotape but I do now think that the new Sony XDCam HD technology that records on a sort of Blu-ray disc is about as good as it gets, other than film. DANCING WITH THE DEVIL was shot primarily with a Sony PDW700 but some sequences also used a much smaller Sony EX3 which I own which gave really amazing pictures given that it was a relatively inexpensive piece of kit. I also love the workflow that this new technology allows. 

What has been the most unexpected thing to happen since taking the film on the festival circuit?
I am enormously proud of this film and I only hope that after its world premiere at SILVERDOCS it will be appreciated by audiences and will get picked up for wider distribution. I know that’s not what you asked but it is what I am hoping. Ask me the same question again after SILVERDOCS once ~I know how it has been received! 

Why did you want to screen your film at SILVERDOCS?
I am told that SILVERDOCS provides documentaries with one of the best screening opportunities to see your film in a really fine theater with really fine sound. Given the completion schedule of DANCING WITH THE DEVIL, SILVERDOCS seemed the natural place to premiere it and I was delighted when it was selected for the Sterling World Competition.