The Day That Lasted 21 Years

Camilo Tavares's 2012 Brazilian documentary covers the run-up to the military coup of 1964. It focuses on the role of the American government in that process and uses White House audio recordings of the period along with declassified documents. The film's strength lies in its sources. Two American presidents are heard directly in their own offices, and what they said about the overthrow of the elected government in Brazil is the documentary's main material. The narrative does not claim it was solely an American operation; local support and the army's own calculations are covered too. But the film's weight is on foreign intervention, and that limits its scope. Who it's for: those interested in Latin American political history and archive documentary. Who it's not for: viewers expecting the period after the coup; the film stops at 1964 and does not cover the twenty-one-year regime.