The Comrade: The Life of Luiz Carlos Prestes

Directed by Toni Venturi

105 minutes / Color
English subtitles
Release: 1998
Copyright: 1997

THE COMRADE is the first documentary film biography of Luiz Carlos Prestes (1898-1990), Brazil's "Knight of Hope." The end of dictatorship in Brazil allowed the filmmakers to produce this documentary about one of the most persecuted figures in 20th century Latin American history:

The film covers seventy years of Brazil's chaotic contemporary history, a period in which Prestes was a principal protagonist. from the epic 15,500 mile march by rebel lieutenants in the 1920's, to Prestes' dramatic romance with Comintern agent Olga Benário (during the disastrous communist revolution of 1935), to the military coup, the armed struggle, and through the fierce political repression between 1964 and 1974.

A wealth of statements (by journalists, historians, family members, former Communist Party activists and others) are interwoven with rare historical footage, to form this groundbreaking biography of Prestes, a stubborn Don Quixote who throughout his life pursued the dream of a better world.

Other Ways to Watch

Colleges, Universities, Government Agencies, Hospitals, and Corporations

Purchase DVD for $348.00

Available for educational streaming from:

Select Accolades

  • Best Brazilian Film, 1997 "It's All True" Intl Documentary Film Festival

RELATED TITLES

Takes a camera where few have been, a criminal courtroom in Rio de Janeiro, to record the social theatre, the structures of power, what is usually invisible.

Maria Ramos | 2005 | 102 minutes | Color | Portuguese | English subtitles