The interactive documentary Slum Challenge will be launched in august, but the directors Jonas Unmack Larsen (28) and Mikkel Cantzler Christensen (27) offered SPOT Festival  a sneak preview as well as the chance to interrogate them – an opportunity that Jutland Station could not miss out on.

Inside by Nele Goutier. Jutland Station.

Gasping, wrestling. The camera shakes. A body – we can’t see more than a torso – comes close to the camera. The street is dusky, but there is a sparkle, the shimmering of metal. One blade, two blades; the resonant sounds of ticking and scraping. A scream, followed by a red wave. The camera stops moving. The boy passed away. Or more correctly, you did.

“In Slum Challenge the audience gets to play the role of the main character and chooses how the story develops. You have to try to make it through the slums on your own,” explains Unmack Larsen. That did not end well this time, yet the producers do not aim to put too much emphasis on the hardships of life in the slums. “It is of course about the dangers, but also about the bright sides like playing a coin game or gambling in a cock fight.” His colleague Cantzler Christensen agrees: “It is not about creating pity. The people we met are often happy and try to live a good life despite their poverty, which they are often very good at. Our purpose is to show the diversity of life in the slums and to create a more realistic image.”

That is an important purpose, beliefs the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who decided to fund the educational project. What makes it special, is that the spectator lives the life of an 11-year-old Philippine boy and decides the direction of the story in no less than 53 points in the documentary. Will you collect garbage at the beach or would you rather wash graves to earn your income? Do you spend your money on food or are drugs more tempting? Choosing for the latter does not go unpunished: the screen gets faint, the camera starts zigzagging and a concrete wall is unavoidable.

A whole new world

Filming in a slum is no easy task, tell the two producers, who had to deal with heat, long days, crowdedness and cultural differences. “Most of the time we were the only two white people in the neighborhood, so everyone wanted some sort of reaction from us. It was especially hard to get people to act normally while we were filming and to make sure that we were not followed by twenty excited kids. We needed to redo all the audio, because it was all ruined by the noise they made.”

There were technical challenges too: the entire documentary was shoot over the shoulder of a 11-year-old Philippine boy, which proved to be no easy task. The kid, a local ice cream seller, replaced another boy, who got involved in the drugs and crime scene of the slums and dropped out after two weeks – such is the harsh reality in the slums. Yet, for the 11-year-old stand-in, Slum Challenge opened up a whole new world. Unmack Larsen: “We became like his big brothers and showed him many things that he had never seen or done before. He tried our pool, had a hot shower and saw the view of Manila from our 26 stores high apartment – all for the first time in his life.”

If the boy benefits on the long term from the main part that he played in the documentary, is unclear. “We couldn’t stay in touch with him. He lives in the slums, has no internet and does not speak English. But we paid for his school and hope that he is still attending,” says Cantzler Christensen.

As from Augustus this year, the audience can try to create a happier ending for the boy than the fatal closure described above. Slum Challenge will become online accessible for everyone for free.