First excerpts of Ed O'Brien's Belém documentary to show at ALMA

Excerpts from the documentary Ed O'Brien filmed in Belém in February are billed for their first showing this afternoon, at ALMA (Amazônia Legal Música & Arte), a new music conference in the city. They come inside Ruth Daniel's talk on In Place of War, from 14:00 at the Teatro Maria Sylvia Nunes in the Estação das Docas.

ALMA is free and runs until Friday at the Estação das Docas and SESC Ver-O-Peso, as part of the Se Rasgum festival's 20th year. It is pitched as a forum on the environment and the Amazon's music business before the COP30 climate summit comes to Belém in November, and in February the film's makers planned its release for it.

The crew spent three days taking O'Brien round Belém's peripheries. Filming began on Sunday 23 February with the Clube da Guitarrada, and they also sat down with the photographer Miguel Chikaoka, who denounced the military dictatorship's abuses in the Amazon.

O'Brien went to Belém straight after SIM São Paulo, São Paulo's international music week. Its director, Fabiana Batistela, invited him and arranged the trip, and SIM São Paulo sponsored the film. Daniel and O'Brien are its two central figures. She runs In Place of War, a UK charity working with music and art in places hit by war, inequality and climate change, and it was through her that he came to Belém, Marcelo Damaso of Se Rasgum Produções, the local producers, said in February.

The journalist and film-maker Vladimir Cunha directs, with LabMidia filming and co-writing, and the subject is artistic resistance on the city's edges. By the end of February, Damaso said, they had enough footage for a feature-length film. His visit was heading one way, but then it took another, unexpected turn. That made the filming incredible.⁵