Interview: Jorge W. Atalla (Sequestro)

SEQUESTRO chronicles the heroic efforts of the Anti Kidnapping Division of the São Paulo police department (Divisão Anti-Sequestro aka DAS) from 2005 until 2009 – a time when kidnapping was a booming business in Latin America’s largest city. SEQUESTRO travels deep into the seedy world of organized abductions for the purposes of extortion, exploring the lives of those victimized while tagging along with investigators as they work around the clock, following clues and apprehending suspects in effort to locate victims before it’s too late.

Anny Gomes: You created two documentaries that spoke about completely different and specific subjects. “A Vida em Cana” told the story of the Brazilian’s sugar cane workers and now, “Sequestro”. Was there a specific reason to create this documentary?
Jorge Atalla: In both cases, my motivation for both documentaries was to talk about the people that do not have their work appreciated by society, even though they have amazing life experiences and great stories to share. In Sequestro’s case, while showing A Vida em Cana in the Brazilian Cinema Festival in Miami, Washington Oliveto was kidnapped. I was talking to a friend of mine that was living in Miami and he said he would never go back to live in Brazil because of the violence. So I decided that my next movie would be about kidnapping, capturing reality and trying to get the truth behind what motivated committing the crime and why it was spreading in Brazil.

Gomes: It might have been very difficult to create this documentary not only for its “heavy” theme, but also because the people being interviewed seem to carry a huge trauma regarding this experience. What was the method you chose to approach them so they could share those memories in front of the camera?
Atalla: It was very complicated, both professionally and personally. When we met the DAS (Anti Kidnapping Division, in Brazil), they advised us to talk to Dr. Eduardo do GORIP, a group of psychiatrics and shrinks that gratuitously work with the victims that suffer post-traumatic stress disorder. Through those doctors, we were introduced to the victims that were in the documentary, we interviewed dozens of victims explained me their cases and some of them did not get though the final cut. Before the interviews, the doctors explained me the case and told us what we should or shouldn’t discuss.
Every time I spoke to them, I would say that they could interrupt me in case they felt discomfort while the interview was being made. I would ask them to share the details of what they would remember about their kidnapping and I would write it down from beginning to end. What it was important was never to explore their personal feelings or to force them to remember something they were not ready to share and make them cry. Since the trauma of that experience was already awful, we shall not induce a person to cry or to show sadness.

Gomes: What was the case the impressed you the most?
Atalla: There were two. One of them was Marina’s case. She was kidnapped while she was with her boyfriend inside the car. Both of them had just left school after finals. They were both kidnapped and then the boyfriend was ditched. After they realized it was her car, they took her to a hidden place and she was tied up and blindfolded.
During the first days she was raped and forced to undress without even being gun held by the kidnapper. After her father paid the ransom money, she was set free.

The second case was Washington L., he had a factory, drove to work in the morning and was kidnapped by two armed men. After that, they drove him to another city and they forced him to enter a concrete pipe that was buried near a waste disposal. He remained in that place during 42 days barely breathing. He was tied up and chained against the pipe all the time and had to use a plastic bag as a toilet. After the ransom money was paid, the key of the chain was put inside the concrete pipe and he had to open the lock himself. He had to drag himself for 62 miles (his legs were no longer working), cross a little bridge and the train rail and climb a hill using only his hands. He almost lost his two legs and after two years of physical therapy, he is able to walk.

Gomes: All the kidnapping cases that we see in the movie are real? If they were real, how did you get authorization to be present all those crucial moments, when the police was investigating the crimes or when the family spoke to the kidnappers on the phone?
Atalla: Everything in the movie is real. We had no control of anything. Since we could only follow some teams from DAS, we could build a relationship with the policemen and even the family that was going through that horrible situation. This relationship helped us because we were allowed to follow the whole process of the kidnapping, in the end, after the victim returned home; the whole team was so happy and glad that we had a happy ending to share with the public.

Gomes: Are you working on another project? Will it be another documentary?
Atalla: My next project will be a ficction story based on a real kidnapping case that took place in Sao Paulo. It will be based on the work of DAS and we will have the support of the policemen to work on the actor’s workshop. This project will be financed by Bruno Wainer and produced by Mariza Leao. We are currently working on the script but we hope to start shooting by the end on 2010 or the beginning of 2011.

Sequestro was released in theaters on the 10th of September.