BRAZIL · INVESTIGATIONS

The expert’s conclusion and the expert’s own interview describe two different pieces of work.

Dark Horse opened in the United States on 11 September. Brazil has no release date. (Photo: “Blackmagic Production Camera 4K” by Smashing Film, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

Last Thursday a film about Jair Bolsonaro opened in American cinemas. In Brazil, a Dark Horse forensic report landed saying its money was clean.

Jim Caviezel plays the Brazilian president who governed until 2023. Police in Brasília are less interested in the acting than in the accounting.

The story covers the 2018 campaign and the knife attack that nearly killed him. The film has no release date in Brazil, only a federal police inquiry into who paid for it.

The Clean Bill of Health

Into that investigation has arrived a Dark Horse forensic report with a reassuring conclusion. The film cost US$13.3m, of which US$3.7m came from Brazil and US$9.6m from the United States.

No public money entered the production, it says, and every sum can be followed. The first investor is named as the Havengate Development Fund, a Texas property vehicle.

It was written by Anísio Costa Castelo Branco, who runs a private forensic institute. It was commissioned and paid for by the production company’s defence team.

That last fact is ordinary. Defendants everywhere hire their own experts, and the resulting report is evidence like any other.

The Interview Three Weeks Earlier

On 26 August, before his conclusions reached the press, the same expert gave an interview to the Brazilian outlet Poder360. He was asked where the money had come from.

He said he had not tracked the fund and had no contact with it. That information, he explained, was confidential to the fund itself.

What he had examined was the production company’s spending. Money going out, not money coming in.

It is a real piece of work and it answers a real question. It simply does not answer the one the investigation is asking.

Police consider the origin of the money fundamental, because the inquiry is about money laundering. Havengate is linked in police material to roughly 61m reais, about US$11.8m, associated with Daniel Vorcaro.

Vorcaro owned Banco Master, the São Paulo lender regulators shut in November 2025 with a hole of about US$2.3bn. He was arrested boarding a private jet to Malta.

Brazil’s lower house. A parliamentary grant of about US$390,000 sits inside the inquiry. (Photo: “Construção de Brasília Congresso Nacional e Câmara dos Deputados 1959” by unknown author, via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.)

The Congressman and the Handwriting

A second thread runs through Brazil’s congress rather than its banks. It concerns a parliamentary grant of 2m reais, about US$390,000.

The grant was secured by Mário Frias, a former actor who served as Bolsonaro’s culture secretary. He now sits as a federal deputy, and is credited with the film’s story.

Justice Flávio Dino is overseeing an investigation into whether that public money reached the production. Frias has answered the court’s questions about the grants.

In June, São Paulo police searched the home of Karina Gama, who produced the film. Among the items seized were handwritten notes.

Estadão reports that those notes sketch a flow of funds between three entities. A name written as Mário is marked as a partner, and whether that is the congressman rests on a first name.

On 13 September, Dino authorised the use of financial intelligence reports in the police investigation of the production company. That is a separate authorisation from any examination of the film’s own books.

The Producer Who Will Not Talk

Karina Gama has become the pressure point, and she knows it. On 13 September she told CNN Brasil she is being pushed to cooperate and will not.

Her phrase invoked Mauro Cid, the army officer whose plea bargain shaped the coup-plot case against Bolsonaro. She will not, she said, be the new Mauro Cid.

Outlets render the wording slightly differently, some as the new one and some as the next. The meaning does not move.

What the Report Can and Cannot Settle

Nothing here suggests the expert was dishonest. He described the limits of his work plainly when a reporter asked.

The distance is between those limits and the headline his conclusions have produced. An audit of outgoings has been reported as a clearance of the funding.

Gazeta do Povo has separately argued that Dino’s investigation rests on vague suspicions and coincidences. That view belongs in the record alongside the rest.

No charges have been filed over the film’s financing. What exists is an American release, a Brazilian inquiry, and a report that answered a narrower question than the one being asked.

More: Brazil news in English, every day from The Rio Times.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Dark Horse?

A biographical drama about Jair Bolsonaro, directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and starring Jim Caviezel, covering the 2018 campaign and the stabbing. It opened in the United States on 11 September 2026 and has no Brazilian release date.

Who commissioned the Dark Horse forensic report?

The defence team of GoUp Entertainment, the production company. It is not a court-appointed or police examination.

Does it prove no public money funded the film?

It asserts that, but its author told Poder360 in August that he did not trace the fund the money arrived from. He examined the company’s outgoings rather than the origin of its income.

What is Havengate?

A Texas property fund named in the report as the film’s first investor. Police material links it to roughly 61m reais, about US$11.8m, associated with the owner of the collapsed Banco Master.

Has anyone been charged?

No charges have been reported over the film’s financing. The producer has publicly refused to enter a plea agreement.

Sources: Gazeta do Povo of 14 September, Poder360 of 26 August, Estadão, InfoMoney, Money Times and Metrópoles.