Rise
From the heart of the Rio de Janeiro’s beaches, eclectic culture and sprawling favelas, massive granite monoliths host world-class rock climbing. This natural adventure resource was the motivation for a unique climbing outreach program for at-risk youth in Rio's favelas, the Centro de Escalada Urbana, an ambitious climbing school started in 2010.
All Eyes on Rio. The buzz of the up and coming World Cup, then the Olympics, and all the political wrangling that accompanies it. Deals transacted to host events; hotels hoisting prices into orbit; cement poured for stadium foundations.
One could be forgiven for being swept away by the flare and excitement of planning two of the world's largest sporting events. Look a bit closer, however, at the day-to-day life in the heart of Rio's largest favela, Rocinha, and you'll find the beginnings of a movement emerging from the myriad of alleyways and protruding rebar. Smaller than the World Cup perhaps, but nevertheless significant.
Currently sharing a meeting point with the local surf school, the Centro de Escaladas Urbanas (CEU) consists of a handful of kids who meet once a week to go climbing. Up until a few years ago, the huge rock monoliths and domes that surround the community represented nothing but a barrier, hemming the people in. CEU is slowly changing that, one person at a time, by encouraging these kids to explore the natural surroundings for recreation, broadening their horizons and learning all the lessons that go hand in hand with climbing. Discipline, trust, self-belief are only a few qualities that can be hard to adopt in the sometimes-chaotic favelas. The lives of these at CEU are the subject of our short documentary Rise.
Andrew Lenz, the director of the program and our eyes and ears on the ground, recently informed us that a space officially earmarked for a much-needed climbing wall has been repurposed, soon to be a jail. This ugly turn of events poses new questions about the story of this climbing movement. How will local politics, presumably preparing Rio for the fast-approaching limelight, affect the lives of these young climbers? The climbing and the movement will continue — come hell, high water or jails — but the number of roadblocks in CEU's journey is unknown.
With preliminary footage shot last spring, Encompass Films is set to head back to Rio in April and hopefully creep under the wire of extortionate Word Cup pricing to harvest story both in Rocinha and high on the surrounding cliffs. Until then, we continue to plan — with the help of our Mountainfilm Commitment Grant MacBook — from every base camp, living room or gutter that we currently call our “studio.”
—Dominic Gill, Encompass Films
We asked the 2013 Mountainfilm Commitment Grant winners to report upon their projects. This blog marks the fourth in the series. Read about The Rider and The Wolf, Mending the Line and Who Owns Water.
