Confisco

"Fernando Collor de Mello was the first president elected in a direct election after more than two decades of dictatorship in Brazil. However, in a short time, the hope for better days was gone: one of the first actions of the new president, on March 16, 1990, was to freeze deposits in current accounts and savings of all Brazilians - an attitude that became known as "confiscation" and that sought to reduce the hyperinflation that the country faced. Quickly the action became unpopular, causing even more damage than what was sought to combat. Decades later, HBO's original documentary 'Confiscation' recalls those facts. The central figure of the film is Zélia Cardoso de Mello, the Finance Minister behind the so-called Collor Plan. "I failed," the economist admits in the movie. Sharing the spotlight with her are those harmed by the confiscation, who suffered firsthand with the economic policy, as well as politicians and journalists. Between one interview and another, the documentary brings records of TV from the time, telling what happened from the press. One of the merits of the production is to seek an intimate and humanized view of the biographies, sometimes showing the contrast between Zélia and the people who tell their sufferings. Important for those who lived those times and want to understand the facts better, but also for the younger ones - after all, in politics everything is cyclical and, at the moment the documentary is released, the ghost of inflation returns to haunt us."