Kites Director Walter Thompson-Hernandez on Violence the Poetry in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro 

In the favelas of major Brazilian cities like Rio de Janeiro, it’s common to see colorful kites punctuating the skies. The informal settlements, or slums, have become synonymous with their kites and kite festivals, where residents use bamboo and paper to keep the traditional activity alive. 

That image was a memorable one for filmmaker Walter Thompson-Hernandez, who was struck by the juxtaposition of the innocent activity with the police brutality happening in the same areas. It was enough to inspire him to craft the Tribeca entry Kites, which made its world premiere during the festival. 

“I knew there was a story here, a film that speaks to the complexity of how heartbreaking but how beautiful life can be,” he tells MovieMaker. “On one hand, there's kite flying and how earnest and how pure that is. On the other, there's death and police violence. For me, Kites is a long visual poem that isn't rooted in traditional acts. It's vignettes about three or four different people who live in this community.”

Kites took five years to make. Thompson-Hernandez put together $100,000 and convinced a group of friends in Brazil to star. He had another friend do the music, and used a constantly evolving outline to follow the characters in the most natural ways possible. There was no script and plenty of improvisation, and what emerged were themes of life, love and duality.

We spoke with Thompson-Hernandez about his unique process for this film, shooting in Brazil, and the importance of representing these characters and real-life favelas internationally. 

Walter Thompson-Hernandez on the Unusual Process of Shooting Kites

Amber Dowling: Did this process take longer than you potentially anticipated because of how you shot it and put it together?  

Walter Thompson-Hernandez: It took as long as I think it was supposed to have taken. We took six different trips to Brazil and each time we stayed for five or six days. After the third trip, I thought we were done. But then I would go to edit and find more beats and more discovery. Eventually, I realized there could be a really beautiful component of protection if we saw these guardian angels in heaven. So it just continued to grow in a way that feels beautiful and interesting and provocative.

Amber Dowling: The scenes of angels and magical realism tie your vignettes together. Tell me more about threading them into the film. 

Walter Thompson-Hernandez: They arose from conversations with my friends who had relatives and people they knew who were victims of police violence. It led to these deep, late night conversations about what protection looks like and what safety looks like and what God looks like in spirituality. I came to the conclusion that so many of us believe in protection and have a guardian angel of sorts. Well, what would it look like if our protective angel smoked cigarettes in heaven or got their hair braided by an angel friend? It’s just so ridiculous, but also so beautiful and so honest, like the movie. It’s imperfect and it's beautiful and it's unpolished, and it just feels like a really honest, longer poem.

Amber Dowling: For a film that took half a decade to make, your friends don’t seem to age onscreen. Did you use any tricks?

Walter Thompson-Hernandez: No, it's funny, because the actors look so great. The children, though, their voices really evolved over five years. Sometimes I'd go back to Brazil and someone’s voice was a little deeper. Or their personalities had evolved. We never knew what kind of child we would get.

Amber Dowling: What does it mean for you to bring this film out of Brazil?

Walter Thompson-Hernandez: I have so much fondness for the work that my friends did. They're all first-time actors, and they're really excited to watch this movie. It just feels really special. This is a story that is both rooted in the specificity of a place, of Rio, of a neighborhood there, but it also has an incredibly universal message. Of hope, of protection, of redemption. 

It asks this question about our deeds: How are they understood in the eyes of God and the eyes of each other? What does it look like for us to try to do well sometimes and hope for the best?

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Amber Dowling: Your main character is a drug dealer but also the funder of a community kite festival. What messages were you going for with that duality?

Walter Thompson-Hernandez: This movie is an incredibly existential film. We start the movie right in the middle of what I imagine is this existential crisis. Someone who was a drug dealer but also wants to do well and is kind. He has a mother and a family that he thinks he's doing right by. It's asking deep questions about life and our roles and what we do with our time on earth.

Amber Dowling: How did you want to represent the kites themselves in the film?

Walter Thompson-Hernandez: Every favela has a kind of annual kite festival that is probably one of the most important days of the year outside of Carnival. I wanted to structure that as the sort of endpoint. It was important to show that these favelas have this beautiful, multi-generational experience in a way that most neighborhoods in the US aren't as connected to each other in terms of generations. 

There are men and women and boys and girls who fly kites every day and really love kites. That's the most beautiful thing in terms of the importance of people like our main character in an underserved community. 

Amber Dowling: Why premiere at Tribeca, and what are your next goals for the film?

Walter Thompson-Hernandez: It just feels like a city and a festival that is incredibly international. I've always been a fan of Tribeca, and it felt like the right place to have a world premiere. We're still waiting to hear back from a bunch of other festivals, but this was the first. There's already some interest for distribution, and we're hoping to make that happen.

I hope people are drawn to the poetry of the movie. It's not a movie that is traditionally made or traditionally structured. If someone is hoping to find a clean and neat three-act structure, they're not going to find that here. It's a long visual poem that is slower in some moments, but there's an interesting moment towards the end where it brings everything together. I'm excited for the conversations that we can have.

Main image: Kites, courtesy of Tribeca.