Oliver Stone finishes documentary about Lula and talks about controversial biopics: ‘Humanists’

Paris, France / AFP – The American director Oliver Stone completed a documentary about President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, covering his imprisonment between 2018 and 2019 and his return to power, the filmmaker said in an interview with AFP. The work “is about judicial persecution. About what happened when he had been a successful president, and then he was arrested for corruption, which is how things are usually done in these countries,” said Stone on Tuesday, 12th, during a sudden trip to Paris to publish your latest work, NuclearNowa documentary in defense of nuclear energy.

The film is awaiting presentation and does not have a release date, said Stone, a frequent visitor to the Cannes festival, where he screened several productions. In 2021, he presented JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass at the French festival, the last episode of his investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, one of his favorite subjects.

Controversial biopics

Over more than five decades, Stone directed several works related to Latin America, starting with saviorin 1986. But his most controversial works are two documentaries about political figures from the region: Venezuelan Hugo Chávez (1954-2013) and Cuban Fidel Castro (1926-2016).

Lula, Chávez and Castro, ‘humanist’ leaders

”I think the concept of judicial persecution has expanded throughout the world, and has been used for political purposes, as a weapon. But everyone is corrupt. Russia runs on corruption, just like Turkey, the United States,” added Stone, who is also the author of a series of interviews with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. “That’s what they did to Lula. They put him in jail, he was released and won the f***ing elections. (…) It’s a good story, but people don’t know it, except in Brazil,” he added. Filming the documentary about Lula lasted months, and Stone traveled with the head of state.

In Commander (2003), the director told the story of Castro, a leader to whom he dedicated two other documentaries, in 2004 and 2012. Two years later, in 2014, he released My friend Hugo, produced by the official Venezuelan broadcaster Telesur, in defense of the Chavista regime. Asked what similarities he sees between Lula, Chávez and Castro, Stone replied: “They are humanists.” “They are authentic, and they are doing the best they can for their countries,” he concluded.

The accusations of “lawfare”, a term for the political use of the judicial system, were also made by former President of the United States Donald Trump, who is being investigated for almost a hundred formal accusations in the middle of an election year, after claiming that the elections 2016 were “stolen”. ”Almost 100 charges against this guy… It’s ridiculous. (…) They want to put him behind bars, but I don’t think they will succeed” said the filmmaker, who does not hide his hostility towards the Republican candidate. “I’m a free thinker,” he declared.

Stone says he will not vote for Trump in the November elections, but he also will not vote for current president Joe Biden, whom he accuses of being a “warmonger”. The interviews the filmmaker has done, such as the one with Putin, have earned him a bad reputation in Hollywood, where he is accused of conspiracism.

However, he says he doesn’t care much about all this. “F*** it”, he replies smiling.

Winner of three Oscars as a director, he admits that returning to fiction films is complicated. “I would like to make one, but it depends on the gods, you know? You can’t dictate it. You need to have everything in order, it’s complicated to make a film.”