A documentary revisiting the worst radioactive disaster to have ever happened in Brazil - the Goiânia accident in 1987.A documentary revisiting the worst radioactive disaster to have ever happened in Brazil - the Goiânia accident in 1987.A documentary revisiting the worst radioactive disaster to have ever happened in Brazil - the Goiânia accident in 1987.
- Director
- Star
Photos
Roberto Pires
- Self
- (archive footage)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe title makes reference to Devair Alves Ferreira's description of his own fascination with the brightly blue radioactive dust: "I fell in love with death's glow". The Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990) episode inspired by the accident is titled The Deadly Glow (1992).
- ConnectionsFeatures Césio 137 - O Pesadelo de Goiânia (1990)
Featured review
The aftermath of an infamous tragedy
First of all, I wanna thank whoever created this movie's page in here because I had seen this documentary a long ago and failed to create its page
thanks to some bureacrautic issues that prevented me from doing so. And I watched this back-to-back with "Césio 137: O Pesadelo de Goiânia", of which I
wrote a few words and mentioned about this not having a page but recommeding viewers to watch if possible. Now comes my review for it with a decade of
delay.
This short documentary talks about the radiological incident that took place in Goiânia in September 1987 when two scavedigers found a piece of medical equipment from an abandoned hospital that contained a magnificent and beautiful blue powder that later caused the death of four people who had contact with it and several radiation contaminations from Caesium 137, causing a major histeria and commotion about the radiation topics, that were largely unknown from Brazilians except for the Chernobyl accident that happened the year before. It was a catastrophic event that changed a whole nation.
Here we follow the tragedy but also the aftermath of the incident almost 20 years after its happening, and that's what intriguied me and fascinated me the most. Here's some examples: we have the presence of the courageous nurse who followed and worked the first cases of the radiation spreading and it was a true joy to see her telling about her work and commitment to saving people's lives; the numbers of deadly victims raised over the years - which includes film director Roberto Pires who died of cancer in the early 2000's - so strange to think he actually shot that 1990 film on location or was in Goiânia probably making researches for his project at the time of the calamity; and the most curious happening of all: one of the actual scavedigers was actually found living in the streets. One of the earliest people to have contact with the Caesium hasn't died then but he was found with a lost limb and some scar tissues. And he granted an interview where he describes his life after the disaster.
But when it comes to showing the aftermath of the tragedy there is one fact that stood out for me when it was revealed that in the late 1980's and early 1990's Goiânia's habitants were seen with bad eyes whenever they traveled to other states in Brazil. There were attacks on cars with licence plates coming from that state, depredations, prejudice and bias. And years after seeing this movie - there are actual reports that describe such events - I managed to a famous soap-opera released in 1989 where Goiânia was used as location to one of its characters showing the beauty, the quality of life and plenty of other good things to say about the city. Definitely the network was trying to make some damage control and it worked magically, specially if considered that soap-operas hardly get out of Rio-São Paulo or some fictional city.
If you really want to get informed about the crazy radiological disaster in Goiânia and with the real aspects rather than nice fictional drama of Pires than this is the documentary for you. You'll learn a lot, feel distrubed and deeply saddened. Thumbs way up to this! 9/10.
This short documentary talks about the radiological incident that took place in Goiânia in September 1987 when two scavedigers found a piece of medical equipment from an abandoned hospital that contained a magnificent and beautiful blue powder that later caused the death of four people who had contact with it and several radiation contaminations from Caesium 137, causing a major histeria and commotion about the radiation topics, that were largely unknown from Brazilians except for the Chernobyl accident that happened the year before. It was a catastrophic event that changed a whole nation.
Here we follow the tragedy but also the aftermath of the incident almost 20 years after its happening, and that's what intriguied me and fascinated me the most. Here's some examples: we have the presence of the courageous nurse who followed and worked the first cases of the radiation spreading and it was a true joy to see her telling about her work and commitment to saving people's lives; the numbers of deadly victims raised over the years - which includes film director Roberto Pires who died of cancer in the early 2000's - so strange to think he actually shot that 1990 film on location or was in Goiânia probably making researches for his project at the time of the calamity; and the most curious happening of all: one of the actual scavedigers was actually found living in the streets. One of the earliest people to have contact with the Caesium hasn't died then but he was found with a lost limb and some scar tissues. And he granted an interview where he describes his life after the disaster.
But when it comes to showing the aftermath of the tragedy there is one fact that stood out for me when it was revealed that in the late 1980's and early 1990's Goiânia's habitants were seen with bad eyes whenever they traveled to other states in Brazil. There were attacks on cars with licence plates coming from that state, depredations, prejudice and bias. And years after seeing this movie - there are actual reports that describe such events - I managed to a famous soap-opera released in 1989 where Goiânia was used as location to one of its characters showing the beauty, the quality of life and plenty of other good things to say about the city. Definitely the network was trying to make some damage control and it worked magically, specially if considered that soap-operas hardly get out of Rio-São Paulo or some fictional city.
If you really want to get informed about the crazy radiological disaster in Goiânia and with the real aspects rather than nice fictional drama of Pires than this is the documentary for you. You'll learn a lot, feel distrubed and deeply saddened. Thumbs way up to this! 9/10.
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- Rodrigo_Amaro
- Jun 15, 2022
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- Runtime24 minutes
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Top Gap
By what name was Césio 137, O Brilho da Morte (2003) officially released in Canada in English?
Answer