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Middle-class Brazilian Heber Oliveira, 24, is immigrating for opportunity, rather than necessity.<p>Oliveira is not a typical immigrant, but a 21st century global citizen with hopes to reap the spoils of globalization. Flying to Europe and paying college tuition abroad is a luxury otherwise reserved for the developing-world elite or middle-class North Americans or Europeans, but now Oliveira too is one of the privileged.
A strong Brazilian currency, cheap communication and a notoriously loose Italian citizenship law allow him to immigrate without much sacrifice.<p>

The unlikely person most deserving of his thanks: Oliveira's Italian great-great-grandfather.<p>
The written part and photo slide show to this investigative project can be seen at http://www.immigrationhereandthere.org/feature_stories/
ragir

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  • Nice work - lots of great elements in terms of shooting and interviews and overall this tells a very compelling story. It has a nice amount of factual information mixed in. As is true with most pieces, I think it could be shorter. It gets a little confusing at times because there are so many people in it. I'd also suggest turning down the music a little more during shots of people talking.
    I'll definately greenlight this if it is tightened up a bit and if the sound gets a little more polished.
    ForgetSilence
  • Fascinating story -- definitely something I haven't heard about before. I think this can be seriously tightened up -- good as many of the interviews are, there are too many of them,and they begin to diffuse the impact of the piece. My guess is you could shave as much as three minutes off the running time. And either reshoot your own on-camera or slug in some other footage and convey the info there through a V.O. - the audio you have on that shot is lousy. I'm going ahead with the GL anyway, because it's close enough.
    DanPersons
  • Alexander,

    The idea of juxtaposing Brazil and Italy, and those who want to emmigrate to the latter, is an interesting way to get at the notion of the lengths -- literally -- that people will go to to improve their lives.

    What seems to be missing is whether or not those who make the jump from Brazil to Italy do better. Granted, it might be a stretch to find people to interview who either are already in Italy or came back to your own base of operations, but it's the logical question to raise.

    As a filmmaking exercise, I had no problem with the number of different faces on screen. My criticism is this. If many of the interviewees have the same thing to say, namely they just want to start over, you should either dig deeper with more probing questions, or eliminate the repetition. If I may say so, the cutaways are a bit too quick. The subtitles are well done. Informative, but not overwrought. And pardon me for saying so, but the end credit music sounds like it's playing back too slowly. Maybe it's on this end. I don't know.

    Good luck!

    Jeff Burman
    JeffB
  • Jeff,
    You should check out the written piece at the Web site I wrote in the description. It goes into much more detail. The video just explores one or two aspects of the whole picture.
    alex
    ragir
  • This is a great piece, it was well shot and edited and has a very personal feel to it. I think it would be good to have more pods on how globalization is affecting countries other then the US and Mexico. Giving this channel a more international feel will be very beneficial for everyone.
    artistichuman
  • you pick the right one Lucille, i wasnt prepared for the duration but its refreshing doco. kudos dude. from the number of shots used, you really put up a lot of effort.
    amano
  • Brasil, Italia, and London -- wow! Who's funding this thing?
    No, seriously. Fabulous piece. It's thoroughly reported and expertly documents this phenomena.
    I liked the music, but you could highlight all the different locations by using a samba beat for the Brazilian scenes, something Italian sounding in Italy, etc. Sometimes that makes a piece really cheesey, but with all these great locations, you have lots of options. Tropicalia or bossa nova in Sao Paulo, Europop in Italy, classic punk in London?
    Shorter? Always. Dropping the IVs that were too dark or noisy definitely won't kill the piece. It's too solid already.
    rmd22
  • Nice piece with good footage.
    BigMac
  • Wow. Excellent work, my friend. I've pondered doing a similar piece about Romania. You'll have to clue my in on how you funded such an extravagant trip. Congrats on the bid for TV.
    mcornelius

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