Twenty Years Later
1984 Brazilian documentary film directed by Eduardo Coutinho
Twenty Years Later (Portuguese: Cabra Marcado para Morrer, lit. 'A Man Marked for Death') is a 1984 Brazilian documentary film directed by Eduardo Coutinho.
It originated in 1964 as a planned feature film about the life and death of João Pedro Teixeira, a leader of the Peasant leagues from Paraíba who was assassinated on the order of local landowners in 1962. But before it could be completed, production was interrupted by political developments, with some of the crew and cast arrested and their materials confiscated by the Brazilian military dictatorship. In 1984, Coutinho returned to the material, shooting new footage of some of the actors and crew. The resulting critically acclaimed documentary gained a cult following and in 2015, the Brazilian Film Critics Association selected it as one of the best Brazilian films of all time.
Overview
The original script told the story of João Pedro Teixeira, a peasant leader from Sapé, Paraíba, who was assassinated in 1962 on the order of local landowners.
In 1962, Coutinho, replacing a cameraman of Centro Popular de Cultura (CPC), filmed a protest over the death of Teixeira in Paraíba and met Elizabeth, Teixeira's widow, for the first time. On his return to Rio de Janeiro, he was offered the chance of directing a film for CPC. Initially he wanted to adapt João Cabral de Melo Neto's poems "Cão sem plumas", "O rio" and "Vida e morte Severina" but the poet refused, so he decided to film the life of Texeira instead. In 1963, he went to Paraíba and Pernambuco and within three days he wrote a screenplay based on Mrs. Teixeira's accounts.
The public source identifies “Twenty Years Later” as 1984 Brazilian documentary film directed by Eduardo Coutinho. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Twenty, Years and Later.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8254556. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1964, 1962 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Twenty Years Later” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.