Wagner Moura interviews workers rescued from slavery

In 2017, the ILO was launching the 50 For Freedom campaign in Brazil, urging the country to ratify the international protocol against forced labor. The subject usually appears as numbers and statistics, almost never in the voice of those who lived through contemporary slavery. These people needed a face and a voice, without being portrayed as victims, and the presence of the organization's ambassador was a chance to take the issue to a wide audience.

We proposed a conversation, not an interview. Wagner Moura sits at the table with Durval, Judimar, Rafael and Laudir and begins with his own childhood in the interior of Bahia, where he saw people work in exchange for food and a place to sleep. From there, the four tell how they started working as children, how the debt to the boss never ended, and how they only understood they had been enslaved on the day they were rescued.

Forest researched the stories, prepared the question guide, and directed, filmed and edited the documentary. We also produced the subtitles and the English version, reviewed by ILO headquarters in Geneva for international circulation.

The film was at the center of the campaign's launch communication in Brazil, with press releases and posts for the ILO's social media.

The video was the most shared post on the ILO's page in that period, with more than 8,400 shares on Facebook. An excerpt aired on TV Globo's Conversa com Bial, and the campaign was covered by outlets such as Exame, Globo Rural, Nexo and Agência Senado.