Eloá the Hostage: Live on TV, a documentary out Nov. 12 on Netflix, delves into a case that gripped São Paulo, Brazil, in October 2008, when 22-year-old Lindemberg Alves held 15-year-old Eloá Pimentel hostage in her apartment in Brazil.
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Pimentel died on Oct. 18, 2008 after Alves shot her. But her voice appears throughout the film, through newly-shared excerpts from her diary. The documentary also features footage of the crowds that gathered outside Pimentel’s apartment window in Santo André, São Paulo, as news reports of her being held hostage spread, and exclusive interviews with her family, a friend, law enforcement officers who worked on the case, and Brazilian journalists who covered the incident.
Here’s what to know about why the hostage crisis started and how it escalated.
What led up to Eloá’s kidnapping
Pimentel had dated Alves, and at one point gushed about him in her diary, writing, “I never thought I’d love anybody the way I love him.”
But subsequent entries reveal that Alves often acted cold and threatening, and constantly argued with her. In her diary, Pimentel prays for strength, writing, “Jesus, help me, I’m going through a test. I want to give up. Lord, figure this out. Look after me.”
A friend interviewed in the documentary says that Pimentel stopped leaving the house because Alves was jealous about her spending time with anyone but him.
“The relationship started to become suffocating,” says director Cris Ghattas. “It started to become a matter of possession instead of love.”
Pimentel decided to break up with Alves at some point in 2008. Feeling that if he couldn’t have her, then no one else could, Alves took Pimentel hostage on Oct. 13, 2008 in an extreme attempt to prevent her from meeting other people. “Lindemberg could not accept the end of his relationship with Eloà,” says Ghattas. “He felt like she was his property.”
Ghattas wanted to incorporate Pimentel’s diary into the documentary as a way of “giving her voice that she didn’t have at the time” she was taken hostage and to portray her strength, to avoid “reducing her to a silenced femicide victim.”
How Eloá was rescued
The scene of the hostage crisis became a reality TV spectacle. Sao Paulo residents flocked to the building to see if they could catch a glimpse of Pimentel and Alves, her captor. Journalists were calling the apartment, and Pimentel answered the phone, saying that everything was fine and to tell her mom that she loved her.
Police used Douglas, Eloá’s younger brother, to talk to Alves. “You know I’ve been on your side this entire time,” Douglas tells Alves, according to a recording of the phone call featured in the doc. “You’re going to be fine.” Alves can be heard saying he can’t come out, that if he comes out, he’ll have to go to jail.
Five days and 100 hours into the hostage crisis—the longest hostage crisis in São Paulo—Alves wanted a signed document guaranteeing his physical wellbeing in case he surrendered.
A prosecutor showed up, drew up the document, signed it, took it to the side of the building and sent it up with a rope.
In a phone call to police, Alves told them to break into the apartment.
Police placed explosives at the door, which was barricaded by a table and a bookshelf. Inside the apartment, they discovered that Alves had shot Pimentel. She died of her injuries on Oct. 18, 2008, about a day after she was rescued.
Whether the police could have done more to save Eloá
Ghattas says that law enforcement tried to negotiate for too long before barging in on the apartment. In fact, shortly after the hostage crisis became known, a sniper camped out in the building across from the apartment where Pimentel was held captive, but he was never given the authorization to fire.
Ghattas argues that police did not believe Alves would turn violent, that he was just a scorned lover who would come around. In reality, he kidnapped her because “he decided to kill her,” Ghattas says.
“They bet on the negotiation tactic, and during the time, they started realizing that it wouldn’t be enough…and they lost control,” says Ghattas. “I believe Eloá’s life could have been saved if, from the very beginning, there had been a clearer understanding that this was not a negotiation between two young people in love, but rather, a case of gender-based violence and imminent femicide.”
While this case occurred in Brazil, Ghattas says there’s a lesson that will resonate with audiences worldwide: “I would like the audience to understand that responsibility is collective: from a society that often downplays signs of abuse, from media coverage that turned the episode into a spectacle—for the sake of ratings—and from institutional failures that contributed to the tragic outcome. Revisiting this tragedy is a way to reflect on who we are and how we can act more consciously.”
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