Publicity:

What’s Portuguese for miraculous?

Milagroso?

Try Brazil!

While the world has been transfixed by the astonishing economic growth in China and India, just out of the spotlight Brazil has been busily turning a once moribund economy into a juggernaut.

That’s right Brazil, where not so long ago you could watch the inflation rate tick higher by the hour, unemployment grew just as quickly and a clapped out nation was in the vice of a military dictatorship. Brazilians were nevertheless ebullient, optimistic and hopeful but few outside the country gave them or their country much of a chance at even modest recovery let alone give the world’s big players a run for their money.

But that’s precisely what’s happened. Very soon Brazil’s economy will go top five thanks to a global hunger for its mineral resources, epic offshore oil discoveries and its vast agricultural sector.

And as the momentum builds, tens of millions of Brazilians are being winched out of poverty and into relative prosperity. Within a few years it’s estimated the nation’s middle class will number 150 million. The boom is reverberating from boardrooms to the favelas.

“It’s the Brazilian moment! It’s a rich fantastic country. We’ve always said we’re going to be the country of the future but this future never came. I think we’re there.” EDUARDO PAES – Mayor Rio De Janeiro

The exponential growth has also created a new breed of super-wealthy. You might call them, er, Brazillionaires. Big businessmen like Eike Batista, Brazil’s richest man, worth 25 billion dollars.

“It’s a great position to be in isn’t it? This decade for sure is Brazil’s decade” EIKE BATISTA Businessman

North America Correspondent Michael Brissenden goes, well, to Rio – the city centre stage of the financial spectacular. Very soon the famous party-town will host a raucous bender of international sport… fixtures in the 2014 World Cup and in 2016, the Olympic Games.

With so much going on it’s going to take some smooth political samba’ing to ensure the sport, the boom-time and the irrepressible optimism doesn’t become an explosive cocktail that overheats the economy and ravages the environment leaving Brazilians with a big mess and a throbbing hangover.

Still then they know the consequences of a big party.

Leila singing and dancing with staff at pizza party

Singing

00:00

BRISSENDEN: We know Brazilians don’t need a reason to dance, but Leila Velez and her team have millions of them.

00:13

LEILA VELEZ: “Brazilians we are optimistic –

00:26

Leila

always! We always think that tomorrow will be better than today”.

00:28

Leila singing and dancing with staff at pizza party

Singing

00:32

BRISSENDEN: She and her managers have grown a remarkable beauty business and this team-building pizza party is part of the hoopla.

00:36

LEILA VELEZ: “I think the economic change was amazingly important for us and the success of our business.

00:44

Leila

We had this huge opportunity because we knew this market very well. We were part of it’.

00:51

Pizza party

BRISSENDEN: It’s just one of Brazil’s tidal wave of success stories, but this one was hatched at a time when the country was a basket case and success seemed utterly impossible.

00:57

Leila. Super:
Leila Velez
Founder, Instituto Beleza Natural

LEILA VELEZ: “We decided to open our first salon in 1993. It was a very tiny place, very small and there was just the four of us and a big dream. We had no money and we had to sell this very old, beaten up Beetle car.

01:17

Women at salon

That’s how we began”.

01:33

BRISSENDEN: Leila Velez and her partners spent years developing a formula to take the frizz out of hair. When they perfected it, it was an instant hit.

01:37

Leila’s hair products

LEILA VELEZ: “It took only a few months to have a lot of people trying to have the same solution

01:47

Leila

because they saw our hair and said “Wow, your hair looks different. I want the same thing for me”.

01:52

Salon reception area

BRISSENDEN:  In no time they were bringing families and friends and in about six months we had these huge line-ups waiting for the treatment”.

01:57

Women having hair treatment

BRISSENDEN: Brazilians of African descent make up half the population, and until Leila came along there wasn’t a lot they could do with their troublesome curly locks. Her Instituto Beleza Natural is now a thirty million dollar business.

02:11

Leila with customer

LEILA VELEZ: [to customer in salon] “Don’t you like henna? Have you tried henna?”

“Finally,

02:29

Leila

because it’s so clear to us, we have this huge market potential and due to all the problems that we had in our economy and political and everything else – bureaucracy –

02:33

Woman having hair treatment

it was like a huge wall. Nobody saw us. They saw us, I think, in the wrong perspective. Nowadays I think it’s pretty different”.

02:44

Archival. Junta and inflation

BRISSENDEN: It is different, and in a relatively short space of time. Very different from when the military ruled, when speaking your mind was a risk and when inflation was running at two per cent a day.

LEILA VELEZ: “I remember when I was a kid

02:58

Leila

I had to go to the market to buy a lot of beans for my family because the next day the price would be twice or three times,

03:18

just because of the hyper inflation”.

03:27

Beach shots.

Music

03:32

BRISSENDEN: Like Leila’s frizzy haired clientele, Brazil too has had a stunning make-over. When most people think of Brazil, they conjure up the usual clichés – the football, the music and the beach – but while the rest of us have been distracted by the fancy footwork and the beautiful bodies, Brazil has quietly become an economic super power.

03:40

It’s poised to become the fifth biggest economy in the world and it’s a transformation that’s been so swift, the country itself has been struggling to keep up.

04:05

Music

04:13

Mining video

BRISSENDEN:  It’s a story we’re very familiar with here in Australia, a mother lode of raw materials scooped up and shipped out to rapidly developing destinations like China, an agriculture sector feeding a hungry, growing world. But how to harness it in the national interest, make it sustainable and how to best spread the bounty.

MAYOR EDUARDO PAES: “We stayed too many years, you know,

04:21

Paes. Super:
Eduardo Paes
Mayor, Rio de Janeiro

do nothing. That’s pretty much like it is and Brazil has such a potential, I mean, that when things went right, they went right fast”.

04:49

Mayor’s residence/ Mayoral function

Music

04:59

BRISSENDEN: It’s hard to hear much about Brazil’s growing pains here for all the upbeat banter and the popping of corks. The champagne is flowing for the movers and shakers of Brazilian business and investment. Eduardo Paes, the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, is selling his city.

05:02

Paes

MAYOR EDUARDO PAES: “I mean it’s a sexy city, a charming city. I think it’s the best place in South America or southern hemisphere together with Australia, the best place to live and work”.

05:28

Mayoral function

BRISSENDEN: It’s a great time to be running Rio, the city will host many of the World Cup soccer fixtures in 2014 and barely have time to shake the hangover off before the Olympics arrive in 2016.

MAYOR EDUARDO PAES: “I think it’s the Brazilian moment

05:41

Paes

and it’s a rich, fantastic country that has always been in our history, we have always been, you know, like ‘We’re going to be the country of the future’ but this future would never come. I think we’re there”.

05:59

Paes at Olympic function

BRISSENDEN: But it’s going to take some fancy political footwork to ensure the Cup, the Games and Brazil’s sizzling economy, don’t become an explosive cocktail.

06:10

Paes at podium

MAYOR EDUARDO PAES: [Addressing gathering] “They were challenges that only with the Olympic spirit could be overcome”.

06:24

Paes

“A lesson that I learned from Madagar, which was the Mayor of Barcelona, he told me I mean there are two kinds of Olympic Games. You know the one that uses the city, the other kind is the city that uses the Olympic Games. Barcelona did it the second way and we’re going to do the second way”.

06:32

Gabeira. Super:
Fernando Gabeira
Former Senator

FERNANDO GABEIRA: “If you look at the experience of Athens, it was very bad for Athens. If you look for the Montreal experience, they are paying the debt until now. It depends on how you do the thing”.

06:53

Gabeira riding bicycle

BRISSENDEN: At seventy, Fernando Gabeira has seen a great deal of the dramatic economic and political shifts in his country. A one-time firebrand who was a part of the armed resistance to the military dictatorship, he’s a highly respected elder statesman who only narrowly missed out on the Mayor’s job.

07:06

FERNANDO GABEIRA: “Of course we did our job. We

07:32

Gabeira

overcame the dictatorship. Now we are a democracy; not a perfect democracy, but we’re just improving”.

07:36

Gabeira cycles along beach front

BRISSENDEN: It’s fair to say he’s mellowed over time, but he’s still got a sharp eye for injustice and the pitfalls of Brazil’s boom time.

07:44

FERNANDO GABEIRA: “Thousands and millions of people came to the big cities

07:56

Gabeira

and they concentrated in the Brazilian metropolitan areas and we are not able to give them what they deserve, transportation, sanitation, education and security.

08:00

Busy city streets

And this is one of the most important social consequences of this growth”.

08:15

BRISSENDEN: There may be growing pains but the growth has propelled so many people up the social and economic ladder that not too many in Brazil feel any nostalgia for the past.

08:25

EIKE BATISTA: “Eight years ago, we were, what, 65 million middle class Brazilians. Today we are a hundred million Brazilians in the middle class.

08:38

Batista. Super:
Eike Batista
Chairman, EBX Group

Imagine by 2020 having a country with a hundred and fifty million Brazilians in the middle class. It’s a great consumer country”.

08:47

Batista on conference panel

BRISSENDEN: Eike Batista is Brazil’s richest man, worth a cool 25 billion dollars.

09:00

EIKE BATISTA: [addressing conference] “If we keep going like this we will kill Sao Paulo with envy”.

09:06

BRISSENDEN: Naturally, he’s a hard man to pin down but when you can corner him, he doesn’t dwell on any downside for long. He’s the personification of Brazilian optimism.

09:12

Batista

EIKE BATISTA: “This decade for sure is Brazil’s decade because of, you know, how healthy the economy is, very low indebted country. You know, we are now below forty per cent in relation to GDP so very healthy. Also the individual debt is very small and a trillion dollar oil story. You know, so you combine this with a gigantic agricultural potential, iron ore and other metals, it’s really explosive”.

09:22

Batista ‘out and about’/ Oil rigs

BRISSENDEN: In the new Brazil he’s literally a rock god. Chances are if it comes out of the ground, this man has something to do with it, including a slice of major new offshore oil discoveries that will make Brazil one of the world’s top producers.

09:55

“Is Brazil going to be an economic super power as everybody keeps predicting?”

EIKE BATISTA: “Yes because simply by numbers by 2015 we are the seventh largest, by 2015 we’re going to be the fifth largest.

10:13

Batista

So I think if you’re the fifth largest in the world, it’s a great position to be in isn’t it?”

10:26

Corporate oil footage
Super: EBX Group corporation.

BRISSENDEN: And he’s spending a swag of his own money to overcome stifling bottlenecks. Eike Batista is pouring billions into a new super port to feed the seemingly insatiable global demand.

10:34

MAYOR EDUARDO PAES: “We have lots to do, lots to do.

10:49

Paes. Super:
Eduardo Paes
Mayor, Rio de Janeiro

We cannot miss the space now. This is something that we need to follow you know every day, be very transparent, charge ourselves, you know, look forward to make the changes that the country needs, but it’s a big problem infrastructure, and the social differences”.

10:52

Music

11:09

Trolley car

BRISSENDEN: The economic rise has been fast, frenetic, but the economy is a bullet train and much of the country still runs on the old single gauge.

11:15

Music

11:24

Favelas/Luxury apartments

BRISSENDEN:  It’s impossible to ignore the fact that Rio is still a divided place. The favelas, the old slums, topple from the hills and wedge right up against the glitzy neighbourhoods of the well to do.

11:33

Music

11:45

BRISSENDEN:   The drug gangs in the favelas made this one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

11:50

Excerpt from 2002 Foreign Correspondent story

Music

11:55

FOREIGN PROGRAM OF 2002: Hoping to hear from those in the drug business, we make one more night time bid to cross the line into Rio’s drug controlled favelas, a strong hold of the feared Red Command drug gang.

12:02

BRISSENDEN: When Foreign Correspondent last visited Rio in 2002, it was a city engulfed in an undeclared civil war. The drug gangs ruled, children were pressed into the trade, murder was matter of fact and fear reigned.

12:16

DRUG CHILD SOLDIER: [showing his guns] “If this one fails – it jams sometimes – this one doesn’t. With this one, all I have to do is pull the trigger”.

12:32

Army on streets

BRISSENDEN: A major turning point came in November last year when the troops moved in. As many as thirty people died in the fight, but the drug gangs were hammered. They used to call this place Rio’s Gaza Strip, but through sheer force the State now controls these twisting alleyways, and for the residents of this neighbourhood at least, these blue hats represent a sort of new dawn.

12:46

Penha Igreja Church

13:18

Father Serafin dons vestments

Father Serafin Fernandes has been the priest at the Penha Igreja Church for the past fourteen years. For much of that time, people from outside the neighbourhood were afraid to come to mass.

13:26

FATHER FERNANDES: “Much has changed for the better –

13:43

Father Serafin

especially because of the pacification operations.

13:46

Inside Penha Igreja Church

They brought peace to the population and rescued people’s self esteem”.

13:54

Father Serafin during church service

BRISSENDEN: Filming here without permission from the drug bosses would have been impossible. That’s no longer the case. The peace is good he says, but there is still pain and hunger in these crowded streets.

14:02

FATHER FERNANDES: “In Brazil there are 16 million people still living under the poverty line with less than they need to have a daily meal.

14:24

As I have said many times pacification is not achieved through force,

14:41

Father Serafin

but in a different way… an integrated way through social projects so as to offer young people – children, teenagers – perspectives for the future”.

14:50

Church service

Singing

15:07

View of favelas from church

BRISSENDEN: One of the most successful social programs of all is known as the Bolsa Familia. In the ten years it’s been running, the program has been transformational for many poor families.

15:17

Brissenden in market with Claudia and children

CLAUDIA CRISTINA FRANCO: “Here we have a fruit and vegetable market for the community”.

BRISSENDEN: Claudia Cristina Franco’s family is just one.

15:32

CLAUDIA CRISTINA FRANCO: “Nowadays I can buy milk. I have five children, so we need a lot of milk. I buy 36 litres of milk a month,

15:41

Claudia and children

a lot of fruit and vegetables – biscuits even – you know, food in general. A lot of things have changed”.

15:53

Children playing on street

BRISSENDEN: The Bolsa Familia is a government stipend given to the poor that must be spent on education and healthcare for their children.

16:00

Claudia in playground with children

It’s been a highly effective social tool, a way of redistributing at least some of the country’s new wealth, and hopefully breaking the cycle of poverty through education.

16:11

CLAUDIA CRISTINA FRANCO: “It’s made a lot of difference. Today I have a more structured life. I can feed my children better,

16:24

Claudia and children

I can even give them school supplies, such as notebooks which wasn’t possible before – a pencil, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, a pencil case”.

16:34

Children at school

BRISSENDEN: Claudia is one of many who receive the benefits, but she’s also part of the official effort to promote the scheme.

16:46

Advertisement

CLAUDIA IN ADVERT: “This is a marvellous family. We all live here in the Alemao Complex”.

16:55

BRISSENDEN: For the first time many residents of the favelas can see opportunity too.

16:58

Claudia opens window

CLAUDIA CRISTINA FRANCO: “Yes, I lived there in Fazendinha. I lived there all my life. All my life”.

17:06

View of favela from window

BRISSENDEN: But the view from Claudia’s bedroom window in her new government house is an indication of just how fragile and patchy the peace is.

17:14

CLAUDIA CRISTINA FRANCO: “It’s much better to live here”.

BRISSENDEN: She has a good view across the valley of her old neighbourhood and over there, the drug gangs still rule.

17:23

Claudia and daughter

CLAUDIA CRISTINA FRANCO: “This gives us a lot more security… because we’re poor. Security is fundamental to poor people’s lives.

17:33

Military on street

Now I can be indoors without any worries while my kids are playing outside”.

BRISSENDEN: She’s reluctant to say it on camera, but she’s convinced that if the troops were withdrawn, the drug gangs would quickly return.

17:42

CCTV control room

Music

17:59

BRISSENDEN:  They’re keeping the peace with boots on the ground and eyes in the sky. This is Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes all seeing CCTV control room.

18:08

MONITOR OPERATOR ON PHONE: “A lady was run over”.

18:20

BRISSENDEN: It’s the first of its kind in Latin America and the most modern in the world. The monitors here currently track 450 cameras. By the end of this year there’ll be 850. It’s part traffic controller, part crime patroller, with coverage of all corners of the city, including the favelas.

18:24

Street camera/Military presence on street

MAYOR EDUARDO PAES: “There’s a long way to go. Brazil is a country with lots of social problems. I don’t connect violence to social problems. I think

18:46

Paes. Super:
Eduardo Paes
Mayor, Rio de Janeiro

that would be kind of prejudiced against the poor, and you can see some good areas of the city still with some violence.

18:55

View of city from mountain

Brazil has a big challenge on social problems. Rio has a big challenge on social problems”.

19:05

Ivan singing

Singing

19:18

BRISSENDEN: Whatever problems lurk or loom, the Brazilian spirit remains irrepressible and infectious.

19:28

IVAN LINS: We love to dance, we love to sing.

19:39

Ivan. Super:
Ivan Lins
Musician

Music here is something like, it’s like our sixth sense”.

19:42

Ivan singing

Singing

19:49

BRISSENDEN: Ivan Lins hails from the generation of Brazilians who fought for political change, though his weapon of choice has been music.

19:53

Recording studio

Like so many who endured the hard times, the good times look particularly good.

20:01

Jungle/Flowers

IVAN LINS: “We have so much treasures here, you know? We have gold, we have gems, we have all the diversity and the forests, beautiful beaches – in everything.

20:11

Ivan

Brazil it’s this magical country with this contradiction, with these people, so amazing people. You feel okay here”.

20:25

Rio at sunset

BRISSENDEN: Still Ivan Lins is among a growing number of Brazilians voicing concern about the impact of all this tearaway growth on Brazil’s environment.

20:41

Deforestation/Logging trucks

Brazil is still losing thousands of square kilometres of rainforest every year and soil and water pollution from deforestation and mineral exploitation is a growing problem.

20:52

Ivan

IVAN LINS: “We cannot do what we are doing with our forests and, you know, our nature. You know, that’s not the way to make money and there’s ways of keeping the economy strong, but that is costing us. This is really serious”.

21:08

Gabeira at beach

FERNANDO GABEIRA: “Brazil has many problems to solve and has to concentrate, to focus on those problems. Otherwise you get a little lazy. You say okay, well good, we’re the fifth on the planet that’s very good. But it’s not like that.

21:28

Gabeira. Super:
Fernando Gabeira
Former Senator

You have to think very clear in your final targets which is to have a developed country, a social just country, a democratical country and a country that respects the environment”.

21:46

Ext. Leila’s salon

LEILA VELEZ: “I think we’ve come a long way. I think it’s very, very difficult to go back into a previous worse stage

22:02

Leila. Super:
Leila Velez
Founder, Instituto Beleza Natural

but I think if we don’t do our homework pretty fast, we won’t be able to keep on growing. We know that we have this opportunity now and we have to deal with all these difficulties and challenges that we have”.

22:11

Hang glider

BRISSENDEN: For all that Brazilians do believe the World Cup and the Olympics will be a rolling coming of age celebration. A party that will showcase the best of the country and the people –

22:29

Party

and one of the many things they are good at here is throwing a party.

22:50

IVAN LINS: “We find something always to celebrate. You know, even a small thing, you know.

23:00

Lins

That’s why this country is so special.

23:07

Party

Music

23:12

IVAN LINS: Here we don’t say just I love you,

23:17

Lins

we say [with exaggeration] I love you, I love you. It’s all full of passion. That makes a huge difference”.

23:19

Party

Music

23:28

Credits

Reporter:   Michael Brissenden

Editor:        Nick Brenner

Producer:   Vivien Altman 

Camera:     Dan Sweetapple  

Research:   Blueye Films

23:40