They Shot the Piano Player: Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s animated film doubles up as a love letter to Bossa Nova and an investigation into what happened to pianist Tenório Jr, with a pinch of denouncement of Operation Condor and the Latin American military dictatorships. The film uses a fictional framing around essentially a documentary, creating a journalist who, as he is writing a book about Bossa Nova, bumps into the story of the hapless pianist who disappeared in Buenos Aires during a tour in 1976. Jeff Goldblum plays the journalist effectively, even if it’s not a particularly hard role; Tony Ramos plays a Brazilian friend who guides him, also well enough. The film, quite naturally, plays a good number of Bossa Nova songs, so while your mileage may vary, it provides a great experience in that sense. The animation is interesting: it’s not smooth, but very colourful; the interviewees are drawn in a way to make them easily recognizable; and the environments are created with a great eye for local detail, always appealing and life-like.