In the hills overlooking the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, a war is going on. Violence has long been harbored in the alleys, and beneath the palms of the favelas. Gangs and drug lords enforce law and order more than the police, who often enter the favelas shooting or ready to shoot. Either way, the fights, the rivalries, and the gunshots always give way to the blood of the young, the innocent and the damned.

City Of Men, a new film by the team behind City Of God, explores the ties that bind friendship, fatherhood, community, and survival in a world that is unsentimental about self-discovery, and is the nemesis to self-preservation. Two friends, Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) realize this the hard way in the months leading up to their 18th birthdays. Acerola has a two-year-old son to raise. Used to his freedom, he feels tied down by his marriage and fatherhood; for Laranjinha, the problem isn’t being a father, it is not having one. While the duo tries to solve their problems, a gang war destabilizes the structure of the drug world around them . When the head drug lord in the community, Laranjinha’s cousin Madrugadão (Jonathan Haagensen), loses his ground to his former partner, the two friends are torn apart in the ensuing conflict. When the dust settles, they find themselves on opposite sides of the war wondering which will be stronger - the pull of friendship or the code of the streets.

Some viewers may remember Silva and Cunha from City Of God, where, at the age of 11, they were cast as the young versions of L’il Dice and File-com-Fritas. They have played Acerola and Laranjinha since City Of God on a television series in Brazil, also called City Of Men. Their real lives almost mirror those of their characters, with the exception that their talent for acting opened a world of opportunity for them that could lead to a life beyond the favela.

Beautiful and dusty, languid and fervent, City Of Men picks up where City Of God left off, showing how the tidal wave of a violent and conflicted past breaks across the doorsteps of today. City Of Men explores not only how drugs and violence shape and constrain the daily lives of the people in the favelas, but also what life is like for the 90% who are not directly involved in the drug or gang world until they fall victim to it.

Opens Friday, February 29 at the Angelika Film Center in New York. For tickets and showtimes, visit Angelika’s website. For more on City of Men, click here.

Lately, I’ve really been jockin’ Talib Kweli, and have been moved (yet again) by his conscious flo, inspired from his revolutionary stance and pumped by the powerful culture he embraces and strengthens. I’ve been pulling out old classics from the Black Star album, Reflection Eternal, The Beautiful Struggle - each with tracks that helped to mold me as an MC, a person, and a part of the hip hop movement itself. Although the last 2 albums he released kind of slid past me, and I never got the chance to cop them, last week I randomly came across the video that recently came out for the track “Hostile Gospel” (Deliver Us) from his newest project Eardrum. Watch it for yourself, but I have to say, I’m getting some of those goosebumps that Talib was giving me back in 2000. The video was shot in Lagos and directed by Andrew Dosunmu.