However, if you're from a Portuguese or Spanish-speaking country and are familiar with Latin documentarians, this Sunday was an even bigger tragedy: we also lost Eduardo Coutinho, who is arguably one of the most sensitive and brilliant filmmakers cinema ever had.

A few months ago, Coutinho was finally invited to became part of the Academy after decades of prolific and frequently revealing work.

Now he's dead at 80.

Murdered.

Stabbed by his own schizophrenic son, who also tried to kill Coutinho's 62-year-old wife and himself (they are in surgery as of this writing).

When I heard the news, my heart broke. First, Roger Ebert; now Eduardo Coutinho. My heroes are going fast.

Yes, hero. Coutinho was not only a fantastic filmmaker; he was a revolutionary. He changed by himself the face of documentaries in Brazil and, dare I say, throughout the world. There's not one Brazilian documentary filmmaker under 60 who was not heavily influenced by Coutinho's work.

I certainly was.

My favorite Brazilian movie is "Cabra Marcado para Morrer" ("Twenty Years Later"), which has a fascinating story itself: It started in 1964 as a project in which Coutinho was going to tell how a peasant leader, João Pedro Teixeira, was killed by landowners two years prior. To make things more authentic, he decided to cast the man's widow as herself, and other poor farmers in the other roles. That's when the military coup happened in Brazil. The police arrested part of the movie's crew and tried to confiscate their footage. Coutinho managed to retrieve what he had filmed, and escaped.

Seventeen years later (yes: 17), Coutinho looked for Elisabeth Teixeira, the main "actress", and the other "actors." He decided not only to finish telling the murdered peasant's story, but also to relate what happened to all those people since the last time he saw them. In doing so, Coutinho created a fascinating narrative that combined the original footage with images of the now-older characters. Meanwhile, Elisabeth, who had gone underground and changed her name to avoid being assassinated, was tracked down by the director, and reunited with the children she'd had to leave behind.