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Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) is a U.S. documentary film directed by Jason Kohn about corruption and kidnapping in Brazil. Kohn has said "I really thought of Manda Bala as a non-fiction RoboCop depicting a very real, broken, and violent society." It premiered January 20, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and the Excellence in Cinematography award. It had a limited release in North America beginning on August 17, 2007. On March 18, 2008, Manda Bala won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking at the... MORE

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) is a U.S. documentary film directed by Jason Kohn about corruption and kidnapping in Brazil. Kohn has said "I really thought of Manda Bala as a non-fiction RoboCop depicting a very real, broken, and violent society." It premiered January 20, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and the Excellence in Cinematography award. It had a limited release in North America beginning on August 17, 2007. On March 18, 2008, Manda Bala won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking at the inaugural Cinema Eye Honors. Manda Bala profiles such subjects as a businessman who bullet-proofs his cars, a plastic surgeon who reconstructs the ears of kidnap victims, former Governor and Senator Jáder Barbalho, a powerful Brazilian politician from the state of Pará who used a frog farm for money laundering, and the owner of the frog farm himself (see SUDAM). The film details many of the reasons for Brazil's corruption including the fact that politicians in office there are exempt from civilian court proceedings, with the consequence that they will never be punished for crimes they commit in office. LESS