A wall separating two slums in Rio de Janeiro, occupied by police after eight young people were kidnapped. Photo courtesy of Douglas Engle/Australfoto, via The Guardian.

The Guardian recently highlighted “Dancing With the Devil,” a documentary about violence in Rio de Janeiro’s slums. Professor Silvia Ramos of Brazil’s Centro de Estudos de Segurança e Cidadania writes,

Rio de Janeiro is no stranger to the sound of gunfire or to images of out-of-breath policemen sprinting into the favelas. Each week the newspapers are filled with pictures of bulletproof vehicles and automatic weapons, of gun-battles and drug busts, of people being arrested and people being killed.

But Dancing With The Devil shows us something we have never before seen on the big screen: the faces of Rio’s drug traffickers and policemen, who tell their stories staring straight into the camera, without disguises or masks.

See a clip of the film here.