declared to “Epoca” magazine by Luiz Eduardo Soares, secretary of Prevention of Violence of Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro, ex-national secretary of Public Security and co-author of Elite Squad, inspired book of Padilha Movie.

Padilha is the Brazilian Director that is gaining more and more international recognition. He was indicated in various international festivals, which won in 2003 the Emerging Artist Award in the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival with the movie “Bus 174” and in 2008 the Golden Berlin Bear in the Berlin International Film Festival with the movie “Elite Squad”. This year, his new movie Garapa was selected by various festivals inclusive the pioneer Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The problems of crime and it’s endemic nature in Rio, particularly in relation to police corruption and middle-class indifference are the preferable themes of the author who documented them very well in the movies Bus 174, which details a hijack that turned into a media circus and Elite Squad, fictional look at BOPE (aggressive law enforcement Brazilian agency). A characteristic of Padilha is to show the problems from the point of view of a character that lives that problem. His movies are normally made of complex drama structures where he position the audience in the character point of view.


Bus 174 is a documentary recounting the events of June 12, 2000 in Rio de Janeiro when several people fell victim to the hijacking of a bus. The movie is focused in the hijacker, Sandro do Nascimento, that was one of the city's drug-dependent street kids of Rio. The plot presents all the factors of his life that explains why his personality is so violent, while presenting he alive hijacking the bus. He had been living rough since the age of six, when he'd seen his mother stabbed before his eyes. After that, he survived the horrors of Brazil's jails and the butchering of his friends at the hands of the police. This way, the director cause proximity and compassion from audience to the hijacker.


Elite Squad charts the story of the captain of the elite BOPE special operations force, who after years of fighting the war in the favelas is seeking a replacement. With this plot, the movie explains how is shaped the personality of the violent police of Rio and how police justify to themselves their violence. It is impressively made, but leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. To present the reality of violence in Rio, through the perspective of a violent cop, the director did two years of research, interviewed 20 cops and psychiatrists from the police.
“Garapa”is his last movie and was recently exhibited on EIFF 2009. This movie as well comes from the perspective of the main characters, this time with a even more tough subject. It’s a movie about hunger from the perspective of those who face it. With honesty approach, Jose Padilha shot 30 days of what happens in the routine of miserable Brazilian families showing that garapa, a solution of sugar and water, is sadly the only aliment that those mums have to give to theirs toddlers. “I wanted to do a movie that could turn concrete the statistics”, said the director to the Brazilian magazine “Carta Capital”. He explains that one of the functions of the politic engaged dramaturgy is to transform impersonal relations into personal relations. “Did you know someone who pass hunger? Me neither. But with the movie you knew”, concluded him.
Padilha is a director that don‘t say what the public have to think. “I don’t make leaflet”, said him to “Carta Capital”. Instead, he shows what happens and let to the public discuss the problem. It‘s realizable in his movies that he doesn‘t judge his characters. He is not saying ‘I’m against torturing” in Elite Squad. Instead, he shows that torture by police exist and explains why police do it, taking the audience to discuss a solution. Another example is that the director doesn’t judge the Brazilian middle-class for it’s indifference with the poor-class. Instead he understand that this happens because of a gap of personal relation between both classes. “If you see a street kid you don’t take he home. However, if you see the son of a friend in the street you take. This is a fact of the psychology: personal relations generate solidarity”, said him to the magazine. He explain that the fact that the people who pass hunger be not personal known by who can solve the problem is one of the reasons why this problem doesn’t solve.
The director actually graduated first in Business Management by PUC (Pontifical Catholic University) of Rio de Janeiro and just after changed his career direction studying Political Economy, English Literature and International Politics in Oxford, England. He awakened to the social thematic and to the cinema when Marcos Prado, a friend, invited him to shot a documentary about workers in the coal for the ECO 92. Padilha explains that he didn‘t prepared himself for cinema, he just started doing. He says he reads a lot about screenplay and photography, more than watch films.
However, one thing he gives big value is to research before doing a movie since he passed 2 years and a half interviewing police men before doing Elite Squad. To do Garapa, Padilha studied the research “Impact of the Bolsa Família program in the Alimentary and Nutritional Security of the benefit families”, launched recently by Ibase (The Brazilian Institute of Social and Economics Analysis) between more things. So Padilha movies are pure reflection of reality. Unfortunately, this is the Brazil that he have today, but fortunately we have Padilha, a director keen to show things up, bringing discussion and provoking changes.