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On a sunny day in June 2000, Sandro do Nascimento pulled a gun on a bus filled with passengers in a fashionable section of Rio de Janeiro. When word of the apparent robbery attempt got out, a media feeding frenzy erupted. Surrounded by traffic, police and cameras, with no easy exit, Nascimento panicked, and the situation quickly escalated.
Hailed as one of the top five documentaries of 2003 by Newsweek, the CINEMAX Reel Life documentary BUS 174 tells the story of this terrifying ordeal - and explores the troubled history of the impoverished 20-year-old who sparked the incident.
Due to the absence of police barricades, Sandro do Nascimento's spontaneous act triggered a massive onslaught of up-close, real-time news coverage. Through extensive use of this gripping news footage, plus probing interviews conducted after the event with hostages, law enforcement officers, journalists, and friends and family of the hijacker, director Jose Padilha shows how one man's personal crisis became a national news phenomenon, as well as how the media inflamed the very event it covered.
BUS 174 chronicles not only what took place during the bus hijacking, but explores why Nascimento took a busload of hostages, touching on such socioeconomic issues as Brazil's attitudes toward its homeless street children. The government often subjects incarcerated young offenders to overcrowded, brutal conditions that further enrage them, inciting even more crime and violence.
Raised in one of Rio de Janeiro's most oppressive slums, Sandro do Nascimento witnessed his mother's brutal stabbing death as a young child. Once playful and well-adjusted, he grew introverted and reclusive. In July 1993, Nascimento was one of the survivors of the infamous Candelária street-kids massacre, in which seven children were murdered (allegedly at the hands of police). According to friends, he subsequently sniffed glue and snorted cocaine, and resorted to theft to support his habit. Nascimento ended up at the Padre Severino Institute, a juvenile-delinquent reformatory infamous for brutal treatment of its charges.
When Nascimento's robbery attempt went awry in June 2000, reporters and cameramen took advantage of the officials' failure to isolate the area, inching closer to capture intimate images of the incident. People all over Brazil tuned in as TV broadcast the event live.
Aware of his audience, Nascimento became more confident, asserting he would not be killed on television. He accused police of killing his friends at the Candelária street massacre, and made demands, threatening to kill an older female hostage with a heart problem if he didn't receive what he wanted. As day turned into night, Brazilians watched the situation unravel, shocked into greater awareness of the country's rampant, poverty-induced violence.
BUS 174 made its world premiere at the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival 2002, where it was named Best Brazilian Film, and subsequently made its U.S. premiere at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, opening the new World Cinema Documentary section of the festival. The film was also seen at, among others, the Sao Paulo International Film Festival (International Critics Award for Best Documentary), Rotterdam (Special Mention Amnesty International Award), and the Miami International Film Festival (Best Documentary Jury Prize). Jose Padilha was recently nominated for a DGA (Director's Guild of America) award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary.
BUS 174 is directed by Jose Padilha; produced by Jose Padilha and Marcos Prado; co-directed by Felipe Lacerda; co-producer, Rodrigo Pimentel; researchers, Fernanda Cardoso and Jorge Alves; editor, Felipe Lacerda; music, Joáo Nabuca and Sacha Amback; cinematographers, Cezar Moraes and Marcelo Guru; sound, Aloisio Compasso and Yan Saldanha.
For CINEMAX Reel Life: associate producer, Sara Bernstein; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.
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