Brazilian film wins top honors in Berlin

Controversial Brazilian film “The Elite Squad” (“Tropa De Elite”) won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival this weekend. The movie- a fictional account of the activities of one of Brazil’s chief police units- beat other favorites including the Errol Morris-directed documentary “Standard Operating Procedure,” and U.S. hit “There Will Be Blood”.

“The Elite Squad” has been a box office smash in Brazil though it had raised the ire of some police officers who tried to get the film banned last year due to its depiction of corruption. Nevertheless, director Jose Padilha gladly accepted the Golden Bear [image] as recognition of Brazilian filmmaking:

“This is a prize for Brazilian film, not just for me,” Padilha said after [Sunday’s] award ceremony in Berlin. “This is recognition I did not expect. It is an incentive to make new, critical films that are very important for our country.”

The judges at the Berlin Film Festival also rewarded Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke who won the prize for most innovative film- “Lake Tahoe”.

Image- BBC News

Sources- Associated Press, AFP, The Latin Americanist, Bloomberg, Reuters UK, imdb.com

Brazil: Controversy over film before its release

A feature film that claims to depict the true stories of one of Brazil’s elite police units has become a hit and garnered controversy despite not being officially released.

“Tropa de Elite” (“Elite Squad”) was directed by Jose Padilha who was also behind the lens of the critically acclaimed documentary “Bus 174.” In “Tropa de Elite” Padilha tries to blame many different groups- from corrupt cops to inept social groups- for exacerbating the problems in the favelas. It is this mentality of a “game with no winners” that has placed Padilha on the hot seat:

“My hope is that people will watch this and say, 'Hell, we have to change these rules.' We hope to generate a debate," Padilha told Reuters before the premiere….Padilha wants them to see that something is wrong with the system, where underpaid officers "must choose between becoming corrupt, neglectful or going to war.”

The controversy will not go away anytime soon since thousands of illegal copies of “Tropa de Elite” have been sold. In an odd twist, a judge denied a request by officers to block the official premiere after she viewed a pirated copy of the movie.

Sources- The Latin Americanist, Reuters, Associated Press

Image- globo.com (Scene from “Tropa de Elite”)