Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), directed and produced by Jason Kohn, is a richly painted, riveting documentary weaving together threads of political corruption and disparity of wealth distribution in Brazil, frog farms, kidnappings in Sao Paulo, reconstructive ear surgery, and the growth of the personal security business in Brazil. If all this sounds like a lot to meld together into one coherent tale, it is, but Kohn proves himself more than up to the task. Cinematical spoke to Kohn by phone recently about Manda Bala, which has received numerous awards on the fest circuit over the past year, and recently won three awards at the inaugural Cinema Eye Awards.

Cinematical: I read that at the Cinema Eye Awards, in your acceptance speech you talked about this film being made out of anger; can you talk a bit more about that?

Jason Kohn: Really that came out of my sense of frustration at the state of contemporary documentary films, at least at the time when I started making the film. There was a lot of talk going on about the democratization of docs, how it's cheaper to make them with new technologies, and I thought that was mostly bullshit. This idea that people on the marginalized fringes of society now have access to these technologies – it's just not true.

Indie Doubleheader is a new feature we're trying out, where I will give fest-length reviews to notable indie films playing the fest circuit. If you're a filmmaker with a film you'd like me to consider for this column, or a film lover who's seen a film you loved and you'd like to see us cover, drop me a line at kim (at) cinematical (dot) com.

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)

What do corrupt politicians, tree bull frogs, plastic surgery and kidnapping have in common? In Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), director Jason Kohn skillfully weaves these seemingly disparate elements together into a cohesive tale of power and corruption, poverty and wealth in Sao Paulo, the capitol of the state of Sao Paulo. Opening on a money-laundering tree farm, Kohn sets the tone of the film early with some beautiful cinematography and a riveting, unobstrusive score.

At its heart, Manda Bala is a tale about money and power. The disparity between the very rich and the very poor is marked in the bigger cities of Brazil, where the wealthy live in fantastic mansions and high-rises that overlook Brazil's favelas -- thousands of rickety shacks of cardboard and metal sheeting, where millions of poor Brazilian's struggle to survive amid crushing poverty and brutal living conditions. In Sao Paulo, the kidnapping of wealthy civilians for ransom has become a huge problem the police force is ill-equipped to resolve.