Brazil's war on illicit hot air balloons

In the "rainforest-cloaked sierra" on the edges of Rio de Janeiro, hot air balloon "fanatics" risk much to send "enormous kaleidoscopic creations into the skies", said The Guardian. Police helicopters fly overhead to shoot the balloons down, and the balloon-makers face three years in prison, if caught.

The annual tradition of launching homemade, unmanned balloons into the skies was brought to Brazil from colonial Portugal, originally as part of festivities honouring Catholic saints. In the 1950s, it "took roots" in the working-class suburbs around Rio de Janeiro, where its popularity persists despite it now being illegal.

Domination of the skies

The unauthorised manufacture, transportation and launching of hot air balloons was banned in 1998. There are genuine safety concerns behind the ban, not least the threat of fires or explosions caused by collisions with power lines. But the ban "has done little to curb the craze", said the paper. "There are "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of turmas (balloon crews) competing for domination of the skies.

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The baloeiros, hot air balloon makers working in secret communities in Brazil's teeming favelas, "risk everything to create and fly their masterpieces", said Al Jazeera, commenting on a documentary premiered this year.

Shot over more than a decade, "Balomania", from Danish filmmaker Sissel Morell Dargis, shows baloeiros competing against one another "to make the most stunning and spectacular balloons". Some of these illegal silk "masterpieces" are more than 70 metres high, said Variety, and need 100 men to launch them into the air. Dargis, who moved to Brazil aged 19, and gained access to the baloeiros through the street-art subculture, says that the "brotherhood" see balloon-making as their "cultural heritage".

Art for the powerless

To the authorities, however, the baloeiros are "delinquents", said Al Jazeera. Taking part in the outlawed subculture means "evading government threats and bounty hunters". Military police helicopters from Rio de Janeiro's gang taskforce have even "been put to work shooting down hot-air balloons", said The Guardian.

Dargis understands the safety risks behind the ban, but questioned why authorities need "AK47s and helicopters and dozens of police cars" to enforce it. "Why does it need to be treated as if it were drug trafficking?", she told Variety.

The answer, she suggested, is that – in a nation riven by gang warfare, crime and corruption – it's easy to scapegoat a relatively powerless community, many of whom live in the country's underprivileged slums. "It's a symbolic act," she told the culture website. "Everything about the balloons is so symbolic that even the repression becomes symbolic: it's an art form for people who don't have access to art, who don't have access in general."