Sergio

Asia Pacific Premiere

For all his deal-making swagger, Sergio Vieira de Mello was at heart an idealist. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power’s biography, this story is about a cross between James Bond and Bobby Kennedy. Suave and sophisticated, Sergio revelled in complexity. Yet he employed the full powers of his charm and intellect to seek practical solutions that never compromised his core values.

After a disastrous string of relationships, Sergio was finally ready to settle down and begin a new life with the woman he loved. Coincidently, at the same time, he was asked to be the UN Ambassador to Iraq, in a war he opposed. He devoted his life to the simple belief that people the world over have a basic right to live their lives with dignity and he felt this. Here, he felt, was a call to help.

But, de Mello found himself accused by the growing insurgency as being a tool of the Americans. On August 19, 2003, Sergio himself became the target. For the first time, the U.N. had become the target of terrorism and shocked the world.

Filmmaker Barker recreates the day that will forever live in infamy reconstructing the fateful bombing of 2003 by including harrowing testimony from Sergio’s fiancée and the military
paramedics who risked their own lives to save him interlaced with haunting footage shot on the day of the bombing and reenactments of the rescue attempt. Devastatingly powerful, Sergio paints a portrait of a man who gambled with his own life to restore dignity to the lives of others. It’s impossible not to be moved by this film.