Garrincha - Alegria do Povo (1962)

The film alternates footage of Garrincha in action for Botafogo and the Brazilian national team with scenes from everyday life, Botafogo’s training routine, and the team preparing to take the field, featuring players of the time such as Zagallo, Jairzinho, and goalkeeper Manga. Garrincha is shown buying records in Rio and later dancing to them with some of his seven daughters at the time, or strolling around his hometown of Pau Grande, in the municipality of Magé, Rio de Janeiro state. As the images unfold, narrator Heron Domingues recounts facts about the player’s life, including that he lived in a house provided by the textile factory where Garrincha and the entire community of Pau Grande had worked or still worked. Garrincha is described as having been a bad worker, able to sleep despite the noise of the machines, but not dismissed because on weekends he stood out in the factory team’s soccer matches. The narration also emphasizes the story that Garrincha only learned his legs were crooked when he read about it in the newspapers. Alongside brief remarks from Garrincha about the fame he achieved and from the doctor who describes the abnormality in his knee, the documentary’s main attraction is the classic footage of the star on the field: his baffling dribbles and beautiful goals for Botafogo and the Brazilian national soccer team in the World Cups. It was the first Brazilian documentary about an athlete and won the “Carlos Alberto Chieza Award” at the 1964 Cortina d’Ampezzo Festival in Italy.