The tragedy of the Joelma building fire occurred in February 1st, 1974, the second in a row of three years (after the Andraus fire, also featured in the film as a foreshadow to Lucimar's death). The whole fire was aired live, causing many spectators to fall sick after witnessing the trapped people jumping off the real life towering inferno.
The fire occurred in 1974, the year The Towering Inferno (1974) was released. The causes of the real Joelma fire and the fictional towering inferno are the same: a spark caused by faulty wiring.
The Joelma building, now renamed Praça da Bandeira, is still in activity and is infamously said to be haunted. An LGBTQIA+ nightclub operated there in 2000s, no longer in activity.
Beth Goulart was only 16 when she was cast as the young adult main character in this film. However, many of the Joelma fire victims were that young, the youngest being a 16-year-old teenager.
A murder-suicide case known as "The Well Crime" happened very close to the building sites in 1948, before it was constructed. A USP professor murdered his mother and sisters, hiding their corpses inside their house's well, later taking his own life after being caught by the police. This crime was said to have happened exactly at the building's current location, but the household was actually located where today is the Piques footbridge in downtown Sao Paulo.
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