The profile of Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha has been on the rise in recent years. Having directed the successful Narcos series (2015), and a remake of Robocop (2014), his ascent was already confirmed back in 2010 when his Elite Squad 2 (Tropa de Elite 2) set a new record for Brazilian audience figures.

Padilha’s films have also been at the center of heated ideological debate in Brazil, tackling issues such as human rights, public security, hunger, and corruption. At his best, Padilha has shown himself to be an auteur capable of capturing the deep iniquities of Brazilian society. However, the director’s frequently moralizing vision of politics has also become the raw material for all sorts of right-wing fantasies.

Padilha first courted controversy with his feature debut, Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite) in 2007. The film tells the story of an “honest” police offer who refuses bribes and collusion with drug traffickers, preferring to use torture and summary execution to obtain justice. Following the film’s release, the director was accused of justifying police brutality, ridiculing human rights groups, and even of trafficking in fascist ideologies. The film’s protagonist, the rogue cop Captain Nascimento, is routinely portrayed as a hero on reactionary websites that support Rio’s militarized special commando unit — BOPE — and a number of conservative groups champion the thuggish Nascimento as a kind of patron saint of outlaw justice.