As adults we often realise that the things that we fought against growing up were the very things that inspired us in the first place. For graffiti artist Marcelo Eco, his turbulent youth found him considered "little more than a tramp" for spray-painting buildings in his neighbourhood. Now he can look back and find an affinity with the very man who created the city his graffiti art was defacing.
Directed by Bruno Bastos and Leo Bastos, Eco Niemeyer is graffiti artist Marcelo Eco's tribute to Brazilian architect Oscar Neimeyer who died at the age of 104 back in December 2012. Over half a century ago Niemeyer was challenged to build a city in the countryside, that city was Brasilia.
Eco's unlikely inspiration is told in a film that was hand-picked as a winning entry by City Of God director Fernando Meirelles, from a series of brand new films supported by Johnnie Walker called The Walkers.
Meirelles chose the winning entries for the six short-feature films produced via crowdsourcing:
“As a filmmaker, I have always been moved by the Keep Walking spirit; after all, it was not easy to produce a movie in Brazil. The boldness of giving the brand’s voice to independent producers had me right away,” says the director, who was excited to see the progress of Brazil and real-life Brazilians, such as community dwellers, natives and street artists, portrayed on the big screen.
Watch this space for the third film in the series of six.