Brazil’s big beautiful and still illegal Balloon-making culture
The full article with images is available where it was first published on November 21st 2024: https://www.latinolife.co.uk/articles/brazils-big-beautiful-and-still-illegal-balloon-making-culture
Graham Douglas
Balloon-making and balloon-chasing comes from a marginal sub-culture in Brazil which values artistic style and size and creates both loyalty and competition. It can be compared to Low Rider cars in California, except that since 1998 it’s illegal and viewed with disapproval by many people, who wrongly associate it with drug-related activities.
Samba and Carnaval were once illegal too, but are now big tourist draws, and balloon-making is an accepted cultural expression in Mexico and other countries.
Sissel Morell Dargis is a Danish filmmaker who graduated as a Game Director from the Danish National Film School, and has released several games including Cai Cai Balão which is a crossover with the film and its characters, and has won prizes in the US and Latin America. She began with an interest in painting graffiti and founded a community project in the Rocinho favela in Rio, now run by local people, which encourages exchanges and cultural activities involving both people who live there and outsiders. Balomania is her first full-length film, which grew organically from contacts among graffiti artists she made while in Brazil.
The cultural significance of ballooning was very clear in her film, when one guy compared the feeling when a balloon rises into the air to falling in love.
Another baloeiro quoted a famous phrase from the poet Raul Seixas: “The dream of the conformist is the reality of the crazy person”, an anarchist philosophical reflection about conformist society.
In the film people were willing to show their faces, which wouldn’t be the case if they were part of a criminal mafia. Everyone felt themselves part of the same mission - to document and demystify the baloeiro culture, so wearing masks was not an option.
I talked with Sissel for Latinolife after her film Balomania was shown at Doclisboa last month.