Kriegerin des Lichts

The heroine of this feature-length documentary is Yvonne Bezerra the Mello, an award winning artist and human rights activist in Brazil. For twenty years, she has been totally devoted to the lives of street children in Rio de Janeiro. In spite of her wealthy upbringing and privileged educational background, she spends almost all her time helping kids who are ill, homeless or suffering from other serious problems. Next to her artistic work as a sculptor, she succeeds in running very complex projects for abandoned children. The latest of these, ‘Children of light’, is committed to the protection and education of marginalized children from the slums. Elfi Mikesch’s camerawork successfully shows where this slum area – an island of poverty – is located in the metropolis full of contrasts. An interview with Yvonne structures the main narrative of the film and gives insight in her motives for such devoted work. To gain trust among the children is the essential basis, she emphasises. Her husband and daughter explain her lifestyle, which is determined by the needs of abandoned children. KRIEGERIN DES LICHTS also includes Yvonne’s own video work ‘death of an excluded child’, which shows her installations and paintings, in which street kids feature dominantly. The footage of Yvonne’s meetings with street children is hauntingly strong.