Monday, September 07, 2009
MOVIE
DIRECTOR Jose Padilha
PRODUCERS José Padilha | Marcos Prado | Zazen Produções | Rio de Janeiro – RJ
WRITERS Bráulio Mantovani | José Padilha | Rodrigo Pimentel | Rio de Janeiro – RJ
DISTRIBUTOR Universal Pictures | Brazil
ELITE SQUAD (PORTUGUESE: TROPA DE ELITE) IS A 2007 BRAZILIAN CRIME FILM DIRECTED by José Padilha. The film is a semi-fictional account of the Special Police Operations Squad (BOPE), of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police, analogous to the American SWAT teams. It is the second feature film and first fiction film of Padilha, who had previously directed the documentary Bus 174. The script was written by Bráulio Mantovani and Padilha, based on the book Elite da Tropa. The movie is based on Elite da Tropa, a book by two BOPE policemen, André Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel, together with sociologist & anthropologist Luiz Eduardo Soares, which provided a semi-fictional account of the daily routine of the BOPE as well as some historical events, based on the experiences of the two BOPE policemen. The book was controversial at the time of release, in its description of the BOPE as a "killing machine", as well as the detailed allegation of an aborted assassination attempt on then left-wing governor of Rio de Janeiro, Leonel Brizola, and reportedly resulted in Batista being reprimanded and censured by the Military Police. Elite Squad was an outstanding commercial success, and became a cultural phenomenon in Brazil. The film won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.
