Watch on Soap2day. When Brazil finally came out from its dictatorship period, Tancredo Neves, the first civilian president after 20 years of military rule, got ill with a strange infection and finally died on 21 April 1985 before taking office. Knowing political stability could get compromised, before dying, he tried to look healthy, and the press also helped with the farce. The documentary is about his slow public agony and death.