Vladimir Herzog is celebrated in two documentaries

Journalist Vladimir Herzog, murdered by the military dictatorship 50 years ago, has his story portrayed in two documentaries released this October.

The film “The Life of Vlado – 50 years of the Herzog case” is produced by TV Cultura, the broadcaster of which the journalist was director when he was murdered by the military regime. The production is supported by the Vladimir Herzog Institute and premiered within the program of the International Film Festival in São Paulo.

Directed by Simão Scholz, the documentary is narrated by journalist Chico Pinheiro and tells the story of Vladimir Herzog, born in 1937 in the former Yugoslavia, who came to Brazil with his family to escape the Nazi invasion. TV Cultura’s journalism director, Marília Assef, says that the film features unpublished files from Vlado.

“Slides from the film they were making, about Canudos, you know, there were unpublished slides from Vlado, which Vlado had taken and which has now been recovered by the Institute. So, all of this institute’s collection was also part of the documentary, it’s in the documentary. And of course, from the TV Cultura collection, which is a super collection.”

The second documentary “Herzog – The Crime that Shook the Dictatorship”, produced by Instituto Knowledge Liberta, focuses on the crime itself. The Institute’s executive director of content, Márcia Cunha, says that the film focuses on the period between the week before the murder and the week after.

“We specifically chose this section of the crime, exactly to show how the dictatorship acted, what it was capable of doing. Including, using some behaviors and strategies that are repeated to this day, right? For example, they had a kind of hate cabinet.”

Due to the lack of stock images of the situations narrated, the film’s production used comic books. The documentary’s director and screenwriter, Antônio Farinaci talks about the search for a different approach.

“We worked based on reports, right? About, based on testimonies, of what some of the episodes would have been like and we tried to recreate these things that don’t have images, right”?

The film featured testimonies from journalists Dilea Frate, Paulo Markun, Rose Nogueira and Sérgio Gomes; Vlado’s son, Ivo Herzog; and the Brazilian film and television director and producer, screenwriter and writer, João Batista de Andrade.