Four Days in September
| Four Days in September | |
|---|---|
Original film poster
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| Directed by | Bruno Barreto |
| Produced by | Lucy Barreto Luiz Carlos Barreto |
| Written by | Leopoldo Serran |
| Based on |
O Que É Isso, Companheiro? by Fernando Gabeira |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Stewart Copeland |
| Cinematography | Félix Monti |
| Edited by | Isabelle Rathery |
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Production
company |
Filmes do Equador
Luiz Carlos Barreto Produções Cinematográficas |
| Distributed by | RioFilme |
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Release date
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Running time
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110 minutes |
| Country | Brazil |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Box office | R$1.8 million |
Four Days in September (Portuguese: O Que É Isso, Companheiro?) is a 1997 Brazilian thriller film directed by Bruno Barreto and produced by his parents Lucy and Luiz Carlos Barreto. It is a fictional version of the 1969 kidnapping of the United States Ambassador to Brazil, Charles Burke Elbrick, by members of Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR-8) and Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN).
It was nominated as Best Foreign Language Film at the 1998 Academy Awards.
The film is "loosely based" on the 1979 memoir O Que É Isso Companheiro? (in English: What's This, Comrade?), written by politician Fernando Gabeira. In 1969, as a member of Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR-8), a student guerrilla group, he participated in the abduction of the United States ambassador to Brazil, negotiating to gain release of leftist political prisoners. MR-8 was protesting the recent takeover of Brazil by a military government and seeking the release of political prisoners. But, the military increased its repression of dissent, MR-8 and ALN members were tortured by the police, and democracy was not re-established in Brazil until 1989.
Gabeira later became a journalist and politician, elected as congressman from the Green Party.
The film is a fictional version of the dramatic events of the 1969 abduction of the American ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick (played by Alan Arkin) in 1969. Elbrick was taken in Rio de Janeiro by the Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR-8) with help of Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN). Gabeira (played by Pedro Cardoso and named Paulo in the film) as a student joins the radical movement after the military takeover of the Brazilian government. He and his comrades, led by Andréia, gradually decided to kidnap the ambassador as a protest, and are shown mostly planning and executing the kidnapping. Paulo is portrayed as "the most intelligent and uncertain of the kidnappers."
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Wikipedia