South American Front 1944

Rich in minerals, oil and rubber and strategically vital for access to Africa, Brazil - under the dictatorship of Getulio Vargas - was wooed by America during the war as part of the USA’s ‘Good Neighbor Policy’. This film ventures beyond the familiar sights of the Copacabana and Rio de Janeiro at carnival time, to show the benefits the relationship brought to both countries, as well as being at pains to show evidence of the socially progressive aspects of the Vargas regime.

From the planned modern city of Belo Horizonte to the Japanese communities of Sao Paolo and the German towns of Rio Grande de Sul, this issue deliberately avoids the familiar cliched images of Brazil in order to build up a complex picture of a country which found itself in the somewhat paradoxical situation of being a dictatorship fighting for the allied cause. This was partly pragmatism on the part of Getulio Vargas’s Estado Novo regime: America provided credit that helped with the country’s industrialisation programme. In return, as this film shows, Brazilian raw materials - rubber and minerals - and strategically valuable airbases played a vital role in the war effort.