A young Brazilian piano player, Francisco Tenório Júnior, unexpectedly disappears one night and is never heard from again. While it is likely that he is a victim of the brutal military regimes that ruled Latin America at the time, a journalist from New York - fascinated by Tenório's music - travels to Brazil to uncover the truth.

They Shot the Piano Player is a dazzling, animated, and documentary-style dive into bossa nova, samba, and the music of Brazil. The film is scattered and not organized well but it is a colorful and intriguing true story. It is soothing to the soul to see the film's artistry of Rio in moonlight and the bright and vibrant clubs and landscapes of Brazil. It is also interesting to learn about the military regimes of the time where tens of thousands of innocent people were tortured and killed for no reason. Their friends and family never got to say goodbye. These people are not alive or dead, only "disappeared."