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The real drama that shoked Brasil will be this week's screening at Jungle Cineclub

Por Victor Fraga

In his 2002 documentary entitled Bus 174, director José Padilha - who recently directed Elite Squad (which won the Golden Bear for best fi lm this year in Berlin) – recounts what happened when Sandro do Nascimento hijacked a bus in Rio de Janeiro in June 2000, threatening to kill all the passengers on board. Brasilian television cameras captured the entire episode, which culminated in two deaths of policemen. All the action was broadcast live. This powerful movie, which outshines reality shows in its depiction of reality by a million miles, skillfully combines TV footage with interviews with street kids, sociologists, members of the police force and even Nascimento’s relatives. Padilha did not exaggerate the facts; reality is often harsher than the goriest of American thrillers. Padilha manages to engage the cinema audiences for more than two hours, just like Brasilian TV succeeded in capturing the attention of Brasil for the duration of the hijacking, but Padilha does it without resorting to sensationalism. Instead the director conducts an in-depth investigation of Nascimento’s deprived childhood and how the lack of social and economic opportunities inevitably led him into a criminal career. This rather gloomy fi lm deals with many recurring woes in Brasil, such as the impossibility of social ascension and the incompetence and brutal methods utilised by the police, without distorting and magnifying the facts or employing sentimentalism. One for Michael Moore to watch.

Coming up on Jungle Cineclub:

l Bus 174 (José Padilha, 2004) ˆ May 8th;

l Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha, 1964) ˆ June 12th;

l Elite Squad (José Padilha, 2007) ˆ July 10th (NEW DATE_ UK Premiere!)

l Favela Rising (Jeff Zimbalist, 2005) ˆ September 11th;

l Pixote (Hector Babenco, 1980) ˆ October TBC and

l Ato dos Homens (Kiko Goifman, 2006)ˆ November 13th