Filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho murdered in Rio

Daniel Coutinho was arrested on Sunday (Feb. 2) on suspicion of killing his father Eduardo Coutinho, one of Brazil's leading documentary directors.

Daniel is receiving care at Hospital Municipal Miguel Couto, while held in custody of the Homicide Division in Rio de Janeiro.

Police believe Daniel stabbed his father and mother, Maria das Dores Coutinho, at the family's home, and then tried suicide. His mother was operated from five stab wounds and remains in serious condition at the same hospital.

After some experience making fiction films in the 1970s, Eduardo Coutinho pursued a career in documentaries. In 1984, he finished Cabra Marcado para Morrer (known in English as “Twenty Years Later”), the film that brought him international prominence. Other works include Santa Marta: Duas Semanas no Morro (“Santa Marta: Two Weeks in the Slums”, 1987), O Fio da Memória (“The Strand of Memory”, 1991), Boca do Lixo (“The Scavengers”, 1992), Os Romeiros do Padre Cícero (1994), Santo Forte (“The Mighty Spirit”, 1999), Babilônia 2000 (2000), Edifício Master (“Master, a building in Copacabana”, 2002) and Peões (“Metalworkers”, 2004).

Last June, he was invited to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars.

Translated by Mayra Borges