SAO PAULO  –  American actor Jim Caviezel’s upcoming feature “Dark Horse,” a biopic about former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has been billed by a movie industry publication as a thriller about the far-right firebrand’s battle “against a corrupt establishment.”  But this week that production was entangled in a scandal rocking the very establishment it meant to denounce. Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the former president’s son and chosen successor to compete in this year’s presidential elections, confirmed on Friday that he had lined up funding for the film from disgraced banker Daniel Vorcaro, who was arrested in March on suspicion of leading a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme. The senator described a contract with Vorcaro to support the film, but said the deal was not connected with the fraud investigation into Vorcaro being conducted by Brazil’s Federal Police. “What happened was a son seeking private sponsorship for a private film about his own father’s story,” the senator said in a statement, adding that he met the banker before news of the investigation broke. “I did not offer any benefits in return.”  The scandal involving Vorcaro’s failed lender Banco Master has consumed Brazilian politics this year, with figures across the political spectrum trying to link their rivals to the bank and distance themselves. That included Senator Bolsonaro himself, who had recently denied any connection to the now jailed Vorcaro, accused by police of trying to bribe regulators and defraud investors. “The left is trying to create narratives aiming to somehow link Bolsonaro to the Banco Master issue, but it doesn’t stick,” he told reporters this month.  “It wasn’t Bolsonaro who met secretly with Vorcaro — it was Lula,” he added, referring to a December meeting between the banker and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.  Senator Bolsonaro and Lula are virtually tied in recent polls ahead of Brazil’s October presidential election, although the Vorcaro scandal has likely hurt the challenger, pollsters said this week.

 News website The Intercept Brasil on Friday reported, citing documents and messages it had seen, that Vorcaro had promised Flavio Bolsonaro $24 million to help produce the film and that so far effectively half of that had been paid.