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Folks,
Earlier today, the Brazilian Supreme Court convicted the Rio Police Chief and a Congressman of the assassination of socialist Rio de Janeiro City Councilwoman Marielle Franco in 2018. It was a tremendous victory for Brasil, which in the past year, also convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro of attempting to overthrow Lula.
Marielle Franco and I studied sociology together at PUC-Rio in the middle of the 2000s, and I’ve tracked the story closely while most North American media outlets ignored it. For the past four years, I have been filming Marielle Vive, a documentary on the fight for justice for Marielle Franco.
Now, I need your help to finance the rest of it as I’ve struggled to score money from North American groups to tell a story coming from Brasil.
At a time when many Americans are scared of fascism in the United States, the story of the movement that fought for 8 years to bring Franco’s killers to justice is a story that could inspire many Americans in their uphill fight against fascism.
For 5 years, right-wing governments, primarily under Jair Bolsonaro, blocked investigations into her murder. However, activists marched demanding answers, murals of her popped up around Brasil, and a massive political movement was inspired by her legacy that has led to lasting change.
In 2023, Lula took office and opened a federal investigation into the crime, which led to the arrests of the former Chief of Rio de Janeiro Civil Police Rivaldo Barbosa, Brazilian Congressman Chiquinho Brazão, and his brother, Rio State Auditor General Domingos Brazão. This week, the Brazilian Supreme Court convicted them of plotting to assassinate Marielle Franco.
Now, I need your help to finish my documentary. The documentary features many of the people who attended college with Marielle and I, and tells a gripping personal story of an inspiring figure.
Check out this preview of our interview with Marielle Franco’s widow, Mônica Benício.
The documentary looks at the political movement inspired by Marielle Franco that led to a record number of Black women elected to office in Brasil. Interestingly, many activists who fought for justice for Marielle Franco cite the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States as inspiration.
The film also looks at a Landless Workers' Movement (MST) settlement named Marielle Vive, founded two weeks after her assassination. Over 400 activists live on the Marielle Vive settlement, which they operate as a collective in accordance with Marielle Franco's political principles.
Under Brasil’s 1988 Constitution, workers can claim the right to land if they can prove that it hasn’t been used for any productive purpose in years. Workers first occupy land, run it as collective farms, and then use the courts to get the government to pay the owners to give the land to the workers.
Over 400,000 families, part of the Landless Workers Movement, have won the right to land this way. Their collective system has made them the largest producer of organic rice and the largest producer of milk in Brasil, all while operating the farms in an ecologically-friendly way.
The workers at the Marielle Vive settlement have endured assassination and violence, but now, after an 8-year struggle, are close to winning the right to their land.
My documentary Marielle Vive tells the story of how workers in Brasil fought back after Marielle Franco’s assassination while making large gains for social movements. We need your help to tell this story because it’s difficult to get foundations interested in stories of what happens in Brasil. However, this is a story that I think could inspire people in our fight against fascism in the US.
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