Saul Landau was filming a documentary on recently elected Salvador Allende in Chile in 1970 when he and cinematographer Haskell Wexler learned that 70 Brazilian political prisoners had just been released to Chile in exchange for the kidnapped Swiss ambassador. Intrigued, they visited the ex-prisoners and decided to make a documentary on the experience of the Brazilians, all of whom had been tortured while in prison. The result of their impromptu interviews, Brazil: A Report on Torture, was released in 1971, and was screened in the United States mainly by activist groups working to raise awareness of repression in Latin America.

Read an interview with Saul Landau by James Green.

View Haskell Wexler’s filmography and Saul Landau’s filmography.