Coronel Delmiro Gouveia

Geraldo Sarno, born in 1938 in Poçoes, a town in the dry interior of Bahia, is best known as a documentary filmmaker and his talent in conveying a sense of the reality of a time and place comes through in this historically based film. In "Coronel Delmiro Gouveia," Sarno tells the story of a Brazilian industrialist who attempted to create a home-grown local industry in northeastern Brazil at the turn of the 20th century. The film shows his resistance to economic domination by foreign interests and his struggle to overcome political persecution in both the city and the arid "sertão."

Delmiro Gouveia arrived in the state of Alagoas in 1903 from Recife and set himself up as a dealer in hides. In 1914, he set up a textile factory in the far west of the state under the name of Companhia Agro Fabril Mercantil, which attracted many people to come and live nearby. In 1921, Delmiro Gouveia was able to equip the factory with electrical light and running water, supplied by nearby waterfalls. Delmiro Gouveia was murdered in 1917 in circumstances that have never been completely explained. His assassination is generally ascribed to foreign economic agents who didn't want Brazilians to have a strong hand in controlling the textile industry; certainly that is the point of view taken in Geraldo Sarno's film.

Today, the small city of Delmiro Gouveia, named in his honor, has about 40,000 people. It is situated about 200 miles west of Macéio, the capital of Alagoas.