When Jean Charles de Menezes swapped his rural hometown of Gonzaga in the mountains of south-east Brazil for London in 2002, he dreamt of returning as a successful electrician.

But the 27-year-old's homecoming was stolen four years ago when he was shot dead by police in Stockwell tube station, south London, mistaken for one of the would-be suicide bombers of the failed bombings of 21 July 2005.

Last night his family, friends and thousands of locals gathered in the tiny town's Jose Nicolau football stadium for the premiere of Jean Charles, a £3.5m Brazilian feature film celebrating his life.

"Today is the most important screening of this film," the actor Selton Mello, who plays De Menezes, told thousands of screaming spectators who had turned out to watch the unlikely premiere on a towering cinema screen in this tiny rural town of 6,000 residents. "I hope that in some way this film helps end the suffering of this family."

Just after 6pm, people began pouring on to the football pitch: teenage mothers and their babies, boys in cowboy hats and leather boots, security guards in black suits, and dozens of elderly local men wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Your tragedy became our pain".

Then came the director and cast, who addressed the crowds from a temporary stage mounted outside De Menezes's primary school. His grandmother sat silently on stage. "This film is to celebrate the life of Jean Charles," said the director, Henrique Goldman, with tears in his eyes. Finally a huge Brazilian flag was hoisted into the night sky accompanied by the national anthem, and the show began.

"It is completely unreal," said Alex Pereira, De Menezes's cousin and a character in the film. "Jean's dream was to leave here anonymous and come home anonymous. But he came back dead and famous. There is nothing worse than that."

The cast features some of Brazil's best-known cinema and TV stars, and several of De Menezes's relatives. "Soon after I found out that a Brazilian had been shot by mistake I realised this was a story I wanted to tell," said Goldman before the premiere, "it touched me." The idea was not to "sanctify" the electrician, he added, but to portray a "flawed hero" who died while travelling far from home to pursue his dreams.

For the family, the launch was a bitter reminder of their loss. "It is difficult," said his brother, Giovanni. "If it was about some other guy who had died in the United States and wasn't from my family, maybe it would be easier to watch. It is going to be painful."

Jean Charles goes on general release in Brazil next Friday; its directors are negotiating distibution in the UK.

Despite including sequences of De Menezes's death in London, the film's makers insist that it is not political, and it was partly funded by the UK's Film Council. Screenwriter Marcelo Starobinas, who has lived in London for eight years, said it was critical of the police not the country. "The film is not openly against the UK, saying that everything is horrible there because of what happened. We respect the UK, but we could not ignore the absurdity of what the police did and the cover-up."

Goldman said he wanted to avoid a film about the "forensic and political aspects" of De Menezes's death. "I didn't want to make a courtroom drama. We wanted to celebrate his life, not just talk about the tragedy," he said.

"It is not investigative journalism," added Starobinas. "There are no new facts that will change the case. The idea was to humanise Jean Charles, and show the pain his mother and family felt. "Everybody knows the story. But they only talk about his death, about how many times he was shot, about the tragedy. Few [newspaper] stories ever talked about who he was: the immigrant, the electrician, the guy who left home to be able to send money to his family." Goldman began researching in 2006. "We interviewed his family, his friends, his enemies, his colleagues, his boss, couriers, cleaners. It was a full immersion," he said.

Yesterday morning Gonzaga was overrun with lorries carrying equipment to the makeshift cinema, part of Estacao Cinema, a mobile film troupe that takes movies to Brazil's interior. "The expectations around here have been huge," said Pedro Henrique Ferreira, 16.

At the town hall, staff rushed around preparing for the arrival of local politicians, film crews and the star-studded cast. "Maybe someone will see the film and think differently about what happened," said Giovanni de Menezes, adding: "Nobody can bring him back now. Only God."