Cover shot.  New documentary filming in Brazil. Image by Dreaming in American.

Brazil on the brain this spring, lustful dreams of beaches, carnival, sex, and drugs?  It's still a little-known fact that a few Santa Fe locals spent two months this winter in another kind of Brazil. Nestled in the lush green hill country of the interior, they found something completely different than what most Americans expect---the sleepy little town of Resplendor exists in a parallel universe.  Almost.  With current statistics reporting a population of 17,000, the community has “...been displaced by a staggering 40 percent through a wave of immigration to the United States; it celebrated its 70th anniversary with half the town missing. There is literally not one family remaining who doesn’t have a relative in the US,” said the filmmakers of Dreaming in American, Sara Dosa, Milla Dias Araujo, Eliot Gray Fisher, and Zoe Bird.

Why leave the appeal of beautiful, idyllic farm life in such mass exodus?  Why take off for the cities in such large numbers, departing from fresh, cheap produce, family-raised meat, hot weather that leaves small need for much clothing or shelter, and days spent motorcycling through fields and planting coffee followed by evenings of singing and eating homemade cheeses?  A group of graduates from College of Santa Fe’s Documentary Studies program teamed up with US friends and local Brazilians this winter to compile a research project on the phenomenon of immigration from the rural state of Minas Gerais, where Resplendor is located, to big city America.

At first, the sight of movie cameras in the minute agrarian village was a bit off-putting, but, residents warmed as soon as they found the newcomers were not “immigration, federal police, or organ traffickers looking for victims” but regular Americans, the artists said. “‘Hey, USA!  You must know my brother/cousin/friend!  He lives in Boston,’ people would say,” said team member Eliot.  That’s how the idea for the film began.

Onsite for the first time a year ago for another documentary on a hydro-electric dam, Eliot became captivated by the idea of a new film on immigration patterns.  He learned that only about 40 million people---or 20% of the country’s population---still live and farm the entire interior region.  The rest have moved to Brazilian or American cities on the coasts.  He and his teammates wondered what made people leave such a setting for gritty, violent Rio de Janeiro days and cold, impersonal Boston nights.  They decided to find out.  “We were so interested in the charm of the rural lifestyle and the people leaving that behind, the interconnectedness of the families who have stayed on, and the lives of the ‘coyotes’ getting people to the border,” said Zoe.

The Trade: Resplendor, Brazil (above) and Peabody, Massachusetts (below).
Photos by Dreaming in American.

They discovered that the poorest of the poor can’t afford to leave rural Brazil; it’s the middle class who go, people like bankers and teachers risking their lives to enter a $15,000 debt to their coyote for border crossing alone. The plan, in general, is to first pay off the coyote (3-4 years), then earn enough to buy the desired house or land in Brazil (5-10 years), and finally go back to home and family.  What the filmmakers found was that in reality, over that much time, people get used to another lifestyle and build bridges where they’re living. Then, families stay broken---without the proper documentation or enough money to even cross and visit one another.  And, scientists become illegal janitors or Dunkin’ Donuts employees for the rest of their lives.  The Boston suburb of Peabody, Massachusetts---undoubtedly a sharp contrast to Brazilian weather and culture, and much of which is in a state of post-industrial deterioration--develops a new identity, becoming the longlost twin of Resplendor itself.  All of this happens so that people can make what, by standards back in Resplendor, is a lot of money in a shorter amount of time. In Brazil, enough money to own a house would take 20 years or more to earn, which doesn’t sound so different from here.  Many Americans are saddled with 30 year mortgages following a string of many more years living as renters.

However, the pull of the American Dream is strong: come here, buy stuff, be happy.  “We all fool ourselves into thinking that is true, but in the end, many give up community, family, and other unnameable things to pursue this dream....neighbors and conversations are much more highly valued in Resplendor than here. But, on the downside, we saw the way that small-town politics can be suffocating for people, like in any small town.  Learning how to negotiate that is important. Ultimately, I want to stay based in my relatively small hometown of Santa Fe and try to make things work there, which is what I wish more people were able to do. That so many can't is one of the big themes of our movie,” said Eliot.

During the course of filming in Brazil, the group noticed a number of contemporary universal themes emerging, things that people in China, Africa, and we in America are experiencing, too: technology as substitute for physical presence; depletion of family and social structures due to middle generations’ moves to cities and faraway lands; the death of the farm country; and, of course, the illusion that more money means more happiness.

“The project became a lot more than a story about immigration; it’s still becoming so much more,” said Sara and Milla.  Milla herself is not only a producer, but also an important character in the movie, which follows her story of trying to leave Brazil to continue her education and teaching career in America.  After 8 weeks filming in Resplendor, the crew flew straight to Peabody, Massachusetts to get the other side of the story.  They will return to Santa Fe sometime in April to finish editing, music, and old-fashioned rotoscope animation (to protect participants’ identities and to create a visual fantasy-scape meant to represent the psychology of the evasive American Dream).  The group plans to hold a summer workshop where Santa Fe teens will help with the animation process, and to have a special screening of the completed project in Santa Fe before submitting the film to festivals this fall.

To read Part II of this article, click here >>

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