There are children in São Paulo who don’t read Portugese, but are able to decipher the rune-like characters of Pixação Paulistana, better known as Pixo. The graffiti messages are all over the city, preferably on hard to reach parts of high building blocks. Pixo stems from the eighties and gives a voice of protest to the inhabitants of the favelas in this city of 22 million.
This documentary about the graphic art of the pixadores gives a great and sometimes chilling insight into their motivation and way of working. “A lot of people from the ghetto, that suffer with poverty would like to speak up, to express themselves, but they can’t. The one who have the right to say something, the ones that can comment on things, are those who own money”, says one pixador.
“I think that there are three main motivations for a ‘pixador’ to get involved with this street culture”, says another. “First is the socal recognition, second comes hobby and adrenaline, and the third one is the protest aspect of it.”
Adrenaline starts running in the viewers’ blood as well when three pixadores start climbing a residence building at minute 2:00 in the film. The boys climb to the top to get media attention, but also because they can’t do otherwise. “Pixo is a heart thing. It runs in our blood, you can’t stop doing it.”