Brazil: A Report on Torture

The film features interviews conducted with 17 of the 70 Brazilians brought to Chile in January of that year as part of an exchange for the Swiss ambassador Giovanni Bucher, who was kidnapped the month before in Rio de Janeiro by the armed guerilla group VPR (Popular Revolutionary Vanguard). In addition to testimonies, reenactments are conducted by the former prisoners which demonstrate the cruelty suffered—including the use of the pau de arara method. == Release ==

The film premiered at the Whitney Museum in New York City on October 21, 1971, where it was accompanied by an interview with Salvador Allende, the 29th President of Chile. Later that same year it was broadcast on WNET, followed by a discussion that included the scholar Alfred Stepan. In August 2012 Brazil: A Report on Torture was broadcast on Brazilian television, marking its television broadcast debut in Brazil. It also received a screening at the Moreira Salles Institute in Rio de Janeiro in November 2012, followed by a discussion including subjects interviewed in the film. This marked the first time that some of the film's participants had seen the film in its entirety. He later commented on the film's obscurity in Brazil, stating that it was "unbelievable" and was likely due to the "repressed society" and the effect that the "veil of forgetfulness plays on torture". == Reception ==

In a 2012 review in Piauí magazine, film director and editor Eduardo Escorel was extremely critical of the movie, criticizing Wexler and Landau for staging re-enactments of torture with the former torture victims, which he felt showed a "total lack of restraint, decorum and modesty". Escorel went on to say that this, along with other criticisms, "might explain why it was so many years in obscurity." In contrast, film historians James and Sara T. Combs felt that the movie was an "excellent example of the "appeal to conscience"" and the movie has received praise from diplomat Jom Tob Azulay. ==References==