Balomania Interview : A Decade Filming Brazil’s Hot Air Balloon Outlaws
After moving to Brazil aged 19 to pursue her love of graffiti, Sissel Morrel Dargis discovered another of Brazil’s underground art movements. Over the next decade, she became deeply embedded in the world of baloeiros, clandestine artists who, operating from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, spend months - even years - building gigantic hot air balloons. Occasionally reaching up to 100 metres in height - and decorated with anyone from Sylvester Stallone to Pavarotti - the balloons are then released into the skies, becoming ephemeral works of art for all to enjoy.
As a one-woman operation, Sissel gained incredible access to this underground balloon brotherhood. Armed with only a handheld camcorder, she joins balloon-makers and balloon-hunters on overnight adventures to document the euphoric - if not always successful - balloon releases. The result of her years of dedication is Balomania, a gripping, intimate and adrenaline-filled portrait of one of Brazil’s most fascinating grassroots art forms.
I caught up with Sissel over Zoom ahead of a screening of Balomania in Copenhagen that evening, for which she planned to create a mini balloon to send into the sky as a tribute. We spoke about how her years with the baloeiros have gone on to influence her own work.
“When you do something collective like a balloon, you are always together. Creating something together produces a much bigger value than what you’re actually making. What you’re making almost becomes unimportant, but in a way the balloon becomes a manifestation of your collaboration. I had hoped it would be more like that in cinema, so I have definitely been influenced to think in this more collective spirit. I think that’s what we want in cinema, but I don’t think it’s always like that.”
The practice of creating these colossal balloons, known as balão, has roots in Catholic traditions, brought to Brazil by Portuguese colonisers in the 1800s. Having gained significant popularity from the 1960s to the 1980s, balão was eventually made illegal in 1998 due to safety and environmental concerns. Despite the hefty prison sentences attached to the practice, the movement only grew in popularity. Today, known and treated by the police as gangs, baloeiros continue to work in secrecy, creating and releasing these giant works of art in defiance of the law.
One of the questions that stood out to me while watching the film was how Sissel was able to gain the trust of these groups, particularly given the risk of imprisonment. The secrecy surrounding the balloon releases is serious, so how did she manage to get so many of these baloeiros to agree to be filmed?
“Because I came from graffiti, I had a softer entrance. Being a woman also had its consequences and advantages. It made me much less threatening. People didn’t take me seriously in the beginning at all.”
Indeed, as much as Balomania is a portrait of this underground world, it’s also a portrait of masculinity. Aside from one of the balloon bosses’ wives, Sissel is almost the only woman to appear in the film. Beyond balloons, we hear the baloeiros’ dreams and hopes for their families through Sissel’s empathetic lens. Although at times you feel you’re missing out on the grander drone shots of the magnificent creations, her on-the-ground footage immerses you in the action, and feels less extractive than if she were working with a bigger film team: the level of trust and pure friendship between the filmmaker and participants is palpable on screen.
“I think it’s important to say that once I’d proven myself, I found myself in one of the safest environments I could be in. I had twenty brothers looking out for me. I knew nothing would ever happen to me. That was this fight club feeling. I got a spot in the fight club and I didn’t have to fight.”
While the environmental impact and safety of the balloons is not to be underestimated, Balomania focusses on the community, passion and collective spirit at the heart of this clandestine operation. This is art for art’s sake. One particularly touching moment in the film shows a young boy and his grandmother discussing the balloons: “If it is beautiful, it is art.”
“The real challenge with art - and always has been - is how to make it accessible to everyone. When art becomes exclusive, it loses touch with its original intention of being. During this time, I learned a lot about creating something and putting it out there. You hope it will be seen and understood, but at the very least, it’s out there for others to grab.”
Balomania is produced by H.O.R - House of Real and had its World premiere at Docs Barcelona in 2024 before showing at CPH:DOX and Visions du Réel the same year, then FIPADOC in 2025.
