Uncle Tommy – The Man who Founded Newsweek (2022)

• 72%
• 2022
• Documentary
• Loli Menezes

Thomas J C Martyn, founder of American Magazine Newsweek is buried in Agrolândia - a very small town in the country side of Santa Catarina state, South of Brazil. From this discovery the movie goes to an investigation into the life of this important and yet little-known character. Thomas was a man of great deeds: he fought in the IWW as a pilot of the Royal Flying Corps, was the first international correspondent of Time magazine and The New York Times, attended big wheels in New York alongside Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Luce, Nelson Rockefeller and Roosevelt, founded the second largest American magazine and after suffering a coup came to South America during the World War II, engaging in international political relations. Through interviews, documents, photos, films, audio tapes, letters and manuscripts, the film tries to reconstruct Tommy's trajectory, a life full of gaps. A road movie between New York and São Paulo, Cornwall and Agrolândia, Rio de Janeiro and Connecticut, where secrets, truths and lies will confront different versions of who this full of mysteries man was and how he turned out to be only 'Uncle Tommy'.