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Henning Albert Boilesen was born in Denmark but later settled in Brazil and became a wealthy and powerful businessman, running one of the country's largest gas companies. Like many wealthy Brazilians, Boilesen was concerned about the nation's political instability in the 1960s and 70s, as radical leftist groups were gaining increasing public support in the face of economic inequality. Brazil's military had formed an aggressive underground counter-terrorist group, Operação Bandeirante, designed to ferret out revolutionary factions, but in order to keep it secret they were dependent on private financing. Boilesen was one of several prominent businessmen in Brazil who bankrolled Operação Bandeirante, but while others were willing to give them money and let the military intelligence agents do the dirty work, Boilesen was eager to join them, and took part in frequent torture sessions against captured left-wing activists. Boilesen's enthusiasm for torture became known to his enemies, and led to him being shot to death by members of the Ação Libertadora Nacional in 1971. Filmmaker Chaim Litewski explores the curious true story of one of Brazil's most famous (and infamous) citizens of the 1960s in the documentary Citizen Boilesen, which received its North American premiere at the 2010 Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival.