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This episode reflects on how Brazilian and Portuguese cinemas serve as a bridge between Latin America and Europe.Rui Poças is an acclaimed Portuguese cinematographer best known for his long-standing collaborations with two key figures of contemporary Portuguese cinema: Miguel Gomes and João Pedro Rodrigues. Since working on their respective debuts—The Face You Deserve (2004) and O Fantasma (2000)—Poças has lensed such acclaimed films as Our Beloved Month of August (2008), Tabu (2012), The Ornithologist (2016), Will-o’-the-Wisp (2022), and most recently Grand Tour (2024), which won Best Director at Cannes Film Festival.His distinctive visual style has also shaped important works by leading voices in Latin America, Europe, and the US, including Zama (2017) by Lucrecia Martel, Good Manners (2017) by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, Frankie (2019) by Ira Sachs, and The Rye Horn (2023) by Jaione Camborda.Rachel Daisy Ellis is a producer originally from England who relocated to Brazil in 2004. For over a decade, she has...

A glimpse at upcoming UK DVD and Blu-ray release dates well into 2025: here’s what’s coming to disc and when.

Here, then, are a few of the upcoming dates for new movies on DVD and Blu-ray that may not yet have been officially announced. Note that all dates are for the UK.

Also: We’ve started adding affiliate links. If you click on those, we benefit, and can spend more money paying more people to write more things for this website. No pressure, just hugely obliged.

Obviously in the current climate everything is subject to change, of course…

Just released

First Time On UK Blu-ray: No Way Out (Film Stories Blu-ray #2)

First Time On UK Blu-ray: Bull Durham (Film Stories Blu-ray #3)

Scroll to the bottom of the this list for more releases over the last few weeks.

Last two weeks

2nd June: Road House

2nd June: Captain Hook: The Cursed Tides...

The Blue Trail, the lively new film from Gabriel Mascaro, takes its name from the secretions of a mythical snail. Azure and oozing, the substance, when dropped on the iris, is rumored to grant a vision of things to come. This news is welcomed with admirable disinterest by Tereza (Denise Weinberg), a woman of a certain age who has, due to recent state insistences, decided there’s no longer much use in looking ahead. The film is set in a near-future Brazil where the lives of the elderly are overseen by some cruel combination of governmental interventions and half-interested offspring. In Tereza’s world, leaving one’s locale now requires a permission slip, and those without are rounded up in so-called “Wrinkle Wagons.” Anyone lucky enough to reach their 80th birthday, as Tereza soon will, are rewarded with a move to The Colonies: a place no one seems to know much about,...

“The Blue Trail,” one of the big highlights of the Berlin Film Festival that’s competing for a Golden Bear, has been acquired by a raft of international distributors.

Paris-based sales banner Lucky Number launched the politically minded movie at the EFM, which runs alongside the festival and sold it to major territories, including Germany (Alamode), France (Paname), Benelux (Imagine), Spain (Karma), Switzerland (Xenix), Portugal (Nitrato), Sweden (Triart), Denmark (Camera), Norway (Arthaus), Baltics (A-One), Poland (Aurora), Czech Republic & Slovakia (Film Europe), Former Yugoslavia (McF Megacom), Bulgaria (Beta), Hungary (Mozinet), Israel (Lev) , Australia and New Zealand (Palace), Indonesia (Falcon).

Lucky Number is currently in discussions to close the U.S., U.K. and Italy and offers in the Middle East, Turkey, Greece and Asia. Vitrine in Brazil and Pimienta, whose deals were made directly by the producers, will distribute the movie in in Brazil and in Mexico, respectively.

“The Blue Trail...

It's not often that a Dystopian setting is used as the backdrop for a warm-hearted quasi-adventure story of self-fulfillment but ever since his debut Neon Bull, Gabriel Mascaro has shown a knack for combining unusual ideas and moods. He also took us into the near-future with his previous film Divine Love, which satirised religious views of marriage and child rearing. Now it’s old age he’s got his sights on and, secondarily, the environment - suggesting that while things may not always look as pristine as they once did, where there’s life, there’s hope.

There’s no indication of exactly what year we’re in this time but it surely isn’t very far from now. “The future is for everyone,” declares the banner that flies from the back of a plane making daily forays over the house where 77-year-old Tereza (Denise Weinberg) lives. The government has...

One of the many peculiarities of recent U.S. cultural trends is the “over-55 community,” gated havens for well-off retirees who embrace the idea of mono-generational living as an all-comforts interlude before Thanatos comes knocking. In Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail, a gentle blend of delayed self-realization fantasy and dystopian portent, the cutoff age is 77, which in a way is progress (think of Logan’s Run) and the move is involuntary, but resistance is not futile. Mascaro’s fourth feature can be considered a pair with his previous Divine Love, which also imagined a near-future controlled by a repressive state disguised as a caring Big Brother, but his latest is less deliciously elliptical than earlier films, privileging sensorial rewards that come from the natural world rather than the human body.

Set aglow by the earthy force of Denise Weinberg as Tereza, a woman determined not to be put away, The Blue Trail...

Movies about dystopian near futures are a dime a dozen, but it’s hard to recall one that sweeps you up in the defiant joy of liberation like The Blue Trail (O Último Azul). Gabriel Mascaro’s imaginative fable is a slap in the face of age discrimination, with hallucinogenic gastropods, dueling tropical fish and “wrinkle wagons” — trucks with caged flatbeds in which non-compliant oldsters are hauled off while kids snap cellphone photos. The subversive spirit gradually awakened in the 77-year-old central character is echoed in the cheeky pleasures of the plotting in a film both fantastical and grounded in earthy reality.

Mascaro had his international breakthrough in 2015 with the intoxicating Neon Bull, a ripely sensual contemplation of the thin line separating man and beast, which upended conventional notions of machismo through its observation of a makeshift family of animal handlers working the rodeo circuit in Northern Brazil. The cowboy...

Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail,” playing in competition in Berlin, marks another great milestone for Brazilian cinema in a year where the country got its first best picture Oscar nomination with Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.” Mascaro follows in the footsteps of Salles playing in competition in Venice and Karim Aïnouz playing in competition at Cannes with “Motel Destino,” three consecutive Brazilian films playing in the most prestigious strands of the three most important European film festivals.

“Each one of these films is so different from each other but has great strengths,” Mascaro tells Variety ahead of his Berlinale bow. “I feel very proud to be a part of it.”

“The Blue Trail” takes place in a near future Brazil where the government relocates the elderly to senior housing colonies so the younger generations can fully focus on productivity and growth. Tereza (Denise Weinberg), nearing 80, refuses to accept her fate,...

“The Blue Trail,” Gabriel Mascaro’s dystopian Brazilian movie which is slated to compete at the Berlin Film Festival, has landed on the inaugural slate of newly-launched Paris-based sales banner Lucky Number.

The selection marks Brazil’s return to the Berlinale Competition following “All the Dead Ones” by Caetano Godardo in 2020. Mascaro previously attended the Berlin Film Festival with “Divine Love” which opened at Sundance and went on to play in the Panorama section in Berlin in 2019. Lucky Number has unveiled a first still of the film and will kick off sales at the EFM in Berlin next month.

The politically minded film unfolds on the banks of the Amazon, and is set in a near future, in a society in which the elderly are invited to exile themselves once their expiration date has passed. The story revolves around Tereza, 77, who has lived her whole life in a small, industrialized town in the Amazon,...

Grupo Globo, the biggest production force in Latin America, has sold the format of the major hit drama series “The Others” for Greece and German-speaking territories and the format for the anthology series “Justice” for Greece, Variety can exclusively announce.

In Greece, “Justice: Life is Not Fair” will be produced by Primavisione and broadcast by Alpha. In “the case of The Others”, the agreement provides for production and exhibition by Alpha.

For German-speaking territories, ndF (neue deutsche Filmgesellschaft) takes over production on “The Others” and may add a partner for exhibition.

Created by Manuela Dias (“A Mother’s Love”), “Justice: Life is Not Fair” was nominated for the International Emmy for Best Actress with Adriana Esteves and for Best Drama Series. “The Others”, by Lucas Paraizo (“Under Pressure”), follows two neighboring couples who clash after their teenage sons’ fight with absurd and escalating consequences.

Angela Colla, head of international business and coproductions,...

If Jada Smith and Will Smith’s public image had previously garnered criticism over their theories on (mostly) love and marriage, it was tremendously fueled last year when the truth came out that the couple had been living “completely separate lives” secretly for 7 years. During this, Jada had also been linked to August Alsina, as the singer confessed in 2020 after much-prevailing rumors.

Jada Smith on Red Table Talk. | Credits: Facebook Watch.

Although Jada Pinkett originally refuted his claims, she eventually came clean about it all during a Red Table Talk episode. Of course, all of this greatly tarnished the Smith family’s reputation and further delved into controversies. However, as it turns out, it was never Alsina’s intention to destroy their public image. Rather, he only did it for the sake of his own integrity and reputation.

August Alsina Confessed to Affair with Jada Smith to Save His Reputation...

Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s married life was always thought to be perfect. The way they support each other in every endeavor, and speak so highly of their other half, never did it occur to anyone that there was anything wrong in their relationship.

Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith in Ali | Columbia Pictures

All that, unfortunately, came to a standstill back in 2020, when Jada Pinkett, in her Red Table Talk, revealed her relationship with singer August Alsina. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Last year, Pinkett released her memoir, Worthy, where she dropped even more bombshells, while simultaneously dishing out interviews, and airing her laundry out to the world. And her poor husband could do nothing but sit back and take it all in stride.

Will Smith’s Marriage to Jada Pinkett Hit a Roadblock

Last year, in her memoir Worthy, Jada Pinkett Smith revealed...

Exclusive: Duván Duque, the Colombian writer-director behind 2024 Oscar-qualifying short All-Inclusive, has signed with UTA and Silent R Management.

World premiering at TIFF last year before going on to play over 70 festivals around the world, where it picked up 20+ awards, Duque’s latest watches as a young boy’s fragile family is shaken when his desperate father faces the possibility of money laundering as a way out of their financial struggles, putting the kid’s precious bond with his stepmother at risk. By shifting the focus from a spectacular tales of drug lords to the emotional journey of a boy with little control over his fate, the drama offers a fresh angle on Colombian society, transcending the typical tropes through which it’s represented.

All-Inclusive was produced by Oscar-nominated French producers Christophe Barral and Toufik Ayadi of Srab Films, as well as Colombian producer Franco Lolli...

Carolina Markowicz returns to the circuit to release her second feature “Toll” (“Pedágio”), cementing another world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, this time in its Centrepiece strand, billed as championing “compelling stories, global perspectives,” before heading to San Sebastian for closing night honors in its Horizontes Latinos competition later this month.

Paris-based Luxbox handles international sales and has provided Variety with an exclusive first look at the riveting trailer.

After high praise for her feature-film debut “Charcoal,” Markowicz, among Brazil’s top-tier cineastes, returns with another compelling societal study, this time with an eye on a complicated mother-son relationship that leads to a keen understanding of just what people are capable of under the influence of their fragile, yet righteous, morality.

Produced by Karen Castanho, Bianca Villar and Fernando Fraiha, founding partners at Brazil’s Bionica Filmes (“Welcome Violeta”), Luís Urbano and Sandro Aguilar from O Som e a Fúria,...

August Winds (2014), Neon Bull (2015) and Divine Love (2019) filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro has began production on his fourth fiction feature film in his native Brazil. Details are extremely sparse but what we could tell from the socials is that it might be a challenging production due to the backdrop (fishing village / shoreline) and we are looking at around a five-week shoot. Recife is possibly the main location for the project. Production began this week so we can expect a major film festival showcase beginning with a first bid at a Cannes showcase — his previous films were showcased at heavyweight film fests such as Locarno, Venice and Sundance.…...

Globo Filmes, the powerful film production arm of Brazil’s Globo, Latin America’s largest media company, has unveiled 11 new movie projects which join the biggest production slate of any company in Brazil.

Directors of new titles, all co-productions, range from star auteur Gabriel Mascaró, and celebrated doc director Eryk Rocha to multi-prized actor Dira Paes, who broke out in John Boorman’s “The Emerald Forest.”

Also in the cut is David Schurmann (“Little Secret”), who and Jean-Pierre Dutilleux whose 1976 “Raoni,” scored and was Oscar nomination and was championed by Marlon Brando.

Mascaró will direct “The Other Side of the Sky,” produced by Globo Filmes and Desvía Produções, a fantasy drama set in an alternative reality Brazil where anyone over 80 is confined to a colony, to help Brazil’s economic recovery. Rocha is prepping “Elza,” a doc portrait of legendary singer Elza Soares, Paes has in development her directorial debut,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Ambulance (Michael Bay)

The Marvel machine may be the most fortuitous development for Michael Bay. Though the director hasn’t dabbled in the world of superheroes—despite a fondness for a cinematic universe of the robot variety—the homogenized, green-screen wasteland of today’s box-office behemoths has indirectly led to a reappreciation of the director’s schoolboy giddiness for practical effects and continually upping the ante for where he can place a camera. As bombastic and occasionally mind-numbing as his approach may be, there’s distinct poetry to the momentum of a maximalist vision where previs filmmaking vis-a-vis a committee is not only missing from his vocabulary, but a kinetic approach makes such a proposition nigh impossible. With Ambulance, a streamlined spectacle that borrows liberally from Heat,...

Argentina’s Manuel Abramovich, Ecuador’s Ana Cristina Barragán and the Ukraine-born Oksana Bychkova, all big fest winners, will introduce their latest films to an industry audience at San Sebastian’s pix-in-post strands, Wip Latam and Wip Europa, over Sept. 20-22.

The sections promise discoveries. They also underscore a reality. As art film pre-sales have plunged, public-sector equity financing has escalated, with producers tapping film funds around the world via international co-production. Wip Latam’s six films average four production partners a piece. Sales, which the films now seek in San Sebastian, is increasingly icing on the cake.

A drill down on titles:

Wip Latam

“Daughter of Rage,” (“La Hija de Todas las Rabias,” Laura Baumeister, Nicaragua, Mexico, Nederland, Germany, France, Norway)

Nicaraguan Laura Baumeister’s stirring feature debut which swept three of the four prizes on offer at San Sebastian’s 2019 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum. Since then it...

Mexico’s Sin Sitio Cine is joining forces with Brazilian company Desvia Produções and Canada’s Notable Content to co-produce Johnny Ma’s project “Chin-Gone.”

A major up and coming Chinese-Canadian helmer, Ma’s directorial debut, “Old Stone,” world-premiered at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival and won the Canadian First Feature Award at the Toronto Film Festival. His most recent film, 2019’s Chinese drama “To Live to Sing,” played at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.

The project “Chin-Gone” will be pitched on Monday Sept. 20 at the San Sebastian Festival’s 10th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum.

The Mexican producer is Bruna Haddad at Sin Sitio Cine, a young company whose latest film “Dos Estaciones,” directed by Juan Pablo González, plays at the San Sebastian Wip Latam pix in post sidebar this year.

Ricardo Lovera (“Homemade”) and Ma both play acting roles in the film, which is scheduled to shoot in San Sebastián del Oeste,...

Paula Hernández’s “El Viento Que Arrasa,”Cristian Leighton’s “El Porvenir de la Mirada” and Johnny Ma’s “Chin-Gone” feature among 14 projects selected for San Sebastian’s 9th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, the Spanish festival’s industry centerpiece.

Many projects come with high-caliber Latin American arthouse backing.

“El Viento Que Arrasa” was talked up by producer Hernán Musaluppi at Cannes; “El Porvenir de la Mirada” is associate produced by Academy Award winner Sebastián Lelio, (“A Fantastic Woman”); Ma’s “Chin Gone” is produced by Rachel Daisy Ellis’ Desvia Produçoes in Brazil, whose credits include “Divine Love,” “Rojo” and “Prayers for the Stolen.”

Of two feature debuts, “Alemania” is backed by Tarea Fina (“The Sleepwalkers”), and “La Sucesión” by Pasto, which had “The Employer and the Employee” at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, and Gema Films (“Soldado”). New Argentine Cinema icon Diego Dubcovsky produces Romina Paula’s “People by Night.” Multi-prized Spanish...

In a year marked by a stagnant box office and distributors experimenting with a wide variety of releases, what does an overlooked film constitute? While there are fewer means than in years past to quantify such a metric, there are still plenty of films that didn’t get their due throughout 2020 and deserve more attention in the weeks, months, years to come.

Sadly, many documentaries would qualify for this list, but we stuck strictly to narrative efforts; one can instead read our rundown of the top docs here. Check out the list below, as presented in alphabetical order. A great deal of the below titles are also available to stream, so check out our feature here to catch up.

A Sun (Chung Mong-hong)

Chung Moog-hong’s A Sun––a rich Taiwanese drama with the texture of a novel––was unceremoniously released on Netflix in the middle of the Sundance Film Festival,...

“A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist–moving an audience through a movie […] making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark,” said the late, great Gordon Willis. As we continue our year-end coverage, one aspect we must highlight is, indeed, cinematography. From talented newcomers to seasoned professionals, we’ve rounded up the examples that have most impressed us this year. Check out our rundown below.

An Easy Girl (Georges Lechaptois)

The French Riviera is the fitting location for this tale of sexual discovery and class criticism. Georges Lechaptois’ frames are gorgeous not just because of the landscape––we have reoccurring overhead shots of the crystal-blue tides rustling against the beach where characters lay––but the juxtaposition of the quiet life out on the sea. The sun-soaked vistas at lunch are as lively as the quiet, sensuous nights the lovers spend in their dimly lit...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Art of the Real 2020

Art of the Real, Film at Lincoln Center’s annual showcase of boundary-pushing non-fiction work, is now underway virtually nationwide. Featuring work by Joshua Bonnetta, Sky Hopinka, Hassen Ferhani, Ignacio Agüero, Lisa Marie Malloy and J.P. Sniadecki, Sérgio da Costa and Maya Kosa, Jonathan Perel, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens, and more, the slate provides a comprehensive survey for finding new cinematic ways to look at the world.

Where to Stream: Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema

Coded Bias (Shalini Kantayya)

Starting with the work of Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab, Shalini Kantayya’s Coded Bias is an alarming...

Divine Love (Divino Amor) Outsider Pictures & Strand Releasing Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Gabriel Mascaro Writer: Gabriel Mascaro, Rachel Daisy Ellis, Esdras Bezerra Cast: Dira Paes, Juliio Machado, Antonio Pastich, Rubens Santos, Clayton Mariano Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 10/21/20 Opens: November 13, 2020 Maybe it’s […]

The post Divine Love Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"Love does not envy, it does not exult in indecency. True love never betrays. True Love shares." Outsider Pictures has released a new official US trailer for the Brazilian neon-drenched sci-fi drama called Divine Love (aka Divino Amor), which originally premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival last year. Set the year 2027, in a dystopian Brazil, Divino Amor tells the story of a deeply religious woman who uses her position in a notary's office to advance her mission to save struggling marriages from divorce. She is confronted with a crisis in her own life that brings her closer to God. The film stars Dira Paes, Julio Machado, and Antonio Pastich. It's rare to see someone combine sci-fi with religion in this way, but this does exactly that, though it won't be for everyone. Nonetheless this film still has a stylish aesthetic and distinct religious focus giving it an edge. Worth ...

One of my favorite films of last year’s Sundance Film Festival is finally getting a U.S. release. Gabriel Mascaro’s strange, alluring Neon Bull follow-up Divine Love is set in the near-future of 2027 in Brazil, following Joana (Dira Paes), a deeply religious woman who is trying to conceive a child by any means necessary. Through his exquisite vision, Mascaro tells a curious tale of spiritual commitment, marital strife, and the blurred separation of church and state, leading to an ultimately surprising, powerful conclusion. Ahead of a November 13 release in theaters and virtual cinemas, the new trailer has arrived.

I said in my Sundance review, “After sprinkling magical realist touches in his prior film Neon Bull, the director’s imagination is once again deployed with full force here. With it being only eight years in the future, his predictions are rightfully minor but artfully woven into the environment for maximum realism.

Even before coronavirus, Brazil’s film sector was in extraordinary trouble, victim of a near 18-month freeze on government film funding under far-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.

Now, many executives fear a radical shake out. “We have the incentive freeze, coronavirus, economic crisis, need for a new audiovisual law,” says Fabiano Gullane, one of Brazil’s biggest film-tv producers. The shingle has drama “Paloma,” from Marcelo Gomes, on tap.

“I fear for the future of medium-sized and small companies in Brazil,” he says. “They are near 100% dependent on [federal film agency] Ancine, [and] may well not have the cash-flow to survive the crisis.”

Adds producer Rodrigo Teixeira: “If we don’t have access to subsidies, production will stop, not only because of the pandemic but also the way Brazilian film financing is structured.”

The double crisis will push Brazilian companies into producing for TV as well as Brazil’s digital platforms.

Last October,...

Virtual retrospective and Laliff Connect to include features, shorts, episodics, masterclasses, musical performances.

The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (Laliff) will host a virtual retrospective of its 2019 edition from April 14 to May 4 in anticipation of its 2020 virtual edition, Laliff Connect, set to run from May 5-31.

Both events will include features, shorts, episodics (retrospective only), masterclasses and musical performances and will be available on Laliff’s website for free, with additional titles to be announced.

Screenings include The Last Rafter by Carlos Rafael Betancourt and Oscar Ernesto Ortega, and Paper Children by Alexandra Codina with a special virtual event...

Because of the nature of the business, a cinematographer often has a more eclectic body of work than an actor or a director, and it is not unusual to see their work span continents. Even by these standards, however, Diego García’s filmography is quite impressive: His last four credits are Carlos Reygadas’s Our Time, Gabriel Mascaro’s Divine Love, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s short film Nimic—four films produced in four different countries by directors with four different mother tongues. It isn’t surprising, then, to hear that García is particularly attentive to a director’s body of […]...

Because of the nature of the business, a cinematographer often has a more eclectic body of work than an actor or a director, and it is not unusual to see their work span continents. Even by these standards, however, Diego García’s filmography is quite impressive: His last four credits are Carlos Reygadas’s Our Time, Gabriel Mascaro’s Divine Love, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s short film Nimic—four films produced in four different countries by directors with four different mother tongues. It isn’t surprising, then, to hear that García is particularly attentive to a director’s body of […]...

Juliano Dornelles on Michael in Bacurau: “When Udo Kier’s character said to the outsiders about the Brazilian collaborators, ‘They don’t speak Brazilian here.’ Brazilian, it’s not a name.”

In celebration of the theatrical release of Bacurau in New York, Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles will present Mapping Bacurau, a program of films that include John Sayles’s Lone Star,; Colin Eggleston’s Long Weekend; Paul Morrissey’s Blood For Dracula; 70mm print of John Carpenter’s Starman; Ted Kotcheff’s Wake In Fright, and a 4K restoration of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man: The Final Cut.

Kleber Mendonça Filho with Juliano Dornelles on Bacurau: “The horses for us is a very interesting marker that this is a Western. They’re beautiful animals, the way they move.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Bacurau, shot by Pedro Sotero, edited by Eduardo Serrano, costumes by Rita Azevedo, with a.

A new apocalypse now haunts Brazilian cinema. It’s one in a string of such upheavals over the past year including an envisaged 43% cut to the 2020 budget of Ancine, Brazil’s huge film-tv agency and motor of movie funding, which is already grinding almost to a halt.

Producers are still waiting to receive approved incentives.

“There are several producers, including ourselves, who have projects that won support from the [Pernambuco] regional fund in 2017 and 2018, but never received it,” says Desvia producer Rachel Daisy Ellis (“Divine Love”).

Independent productions are being strangled by the freeze. “It’s bleeding cinema, it’s bleeding culture. There is a sense of doom, an anemia regarding culture and cinema,” says Karim Aïnouz, director of “Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão.”

Now, Ancine is under threat of disappearing altogether.

On Feb. 19, a proposal will be voted on in congress that extinguishes existing public funds not ratified by the...

The first five directors talked with festival director Bero Beyer and programmer Muge Demir.

”They can cut the flowers, but spring will always come,” was the defiant response to increasing nationalism and reduced state funding, from a press conference with five directors participating in the Tiger Competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr).

The directors were discussing a speech by then Brazilian culture minister Roberto Alvim last week, that borrowed heavily from one made in 1933 by Nazi minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, in which Alvim said Brazilian art must be “heroic and national… it will be deeply committed to the urgent aspirations of our people,...

Paris-based Luxbox has sold more new major territories on Peruvian Melina Leon’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight hit “Canción sin nombre” (“Song Without a Name”), proving sales hits can come from anywhere., especially when selected for Cannes.

A standout at last year’s strong Ventana Sur Copia Final showcase, “Song Without a Name” has closed Italy with Torino.based Reading Bloom, a classics/contemporary distributor and European pay TV/Svod with HBO Europe.

In further deals, Leon’s feature debut has sold to frequent Luxbox client Mad Distribution for the Middle East and North Africa, classic arthouse distributor Trigon for Switzerland, Belgium’s Mooov, a strong buyer of Spanish productions, fro Benelux, and classic arthouse buyer Danaos for Greece.

Spafax and Skyline have acquired airline rights; other territories are in discussion now, including important Asian markets, said Fiorella Morreti, Luxbox co-founder.

The newly-revealed deals follow on already announced licensing arrangements to Film Movement for the U.

Mexico City — Argentina’s Manuel Abramovich, a 2019 Berlinale Silver Bear winner for “Blue Boy,” has tapped French funding for its follow-up, “Pornomelancholia,” one of the highest-profile projects at Mexico’s Los Cabos Film Festival, which kicks off today with a gala screening of “The Irishman,”

Financing from the Region Nouvelle-Aquitaine, a building film-tv hub in South West France, has been secured by the film’s French co-producer, David Hurst at Dublin Films, which is based out of Bordeaux.

As equity finance from production partners has come to dominate over pre-sales in art film financing, and bring far more funding to the table, the number of producers involved on a project is often a good sign of not only its scale but excitement and perceived potential.

Lead produced by Gema Juárez Allen at Argentina’s Gema Films, “Pornomelanholia” is also co-produced by Rachel Daisy Ellis at Brazil’s Desvia, co-writer and...

Paul Hudson’s Outsider Pictures has acquired North American rights excluding Quebec to “Divine Love,” Brazilian Gabriel Mascaro’s Sundance hit which paints a prescient picture of a near-future faith dominated Brazil.

Outsider is planning a Spring 2020 release for the film. Set in a supposedly near-future brazil, the relevance of the film was felt with force just a few weeks ago when far-right President Jair Bolsonaro announced that he wanted Brazil’s Ancine state film-tv agency to be headed by someone who is “terribly Evangelical.”

Suggesting a major talent in the making, Mascaro’s follow-up to his Venice winner “Neon Bull” world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. Guy Lodge predicted “The film’s blend of on-the-button politics and seductive aesthetics should make it hot festival property,” in his Variety review.

Set in 2027, the film follows Joana (Dira Paes), a bureaucrat who uses her job as a...

Paris-based Still Moving has dropped a first international teaser-trailer for Maya Da-Rin’s “A Febre” (The Fever), which world premieres this week in main International Competition at the 2019 Locarno Intl. Film Festival.

One of two Latin American Locarno Golden Leopard contenders, with Maura Delpero’s Argentine-Italian “Maternal” (“Hogar”), “The Fever” marks one of the latest productions from Germany’s Komplizen Films, the recipient of Locarno’s 2019 Best Independent Producer Award.

Produced by Dar-Rin’s label, Tamandua Vermelho, and Sao Paulo-based Enquadramiento Filmes, “The Fever” is co-produced by Komplizen and Still Moving, which has also stepped up to handle international sales.

Brazil’s Vitrine Filmes, the go-to-distributor for many top Brazilian films – “Divine Love,” “Bacurau” – will release “The Fever” in Brazil.

At a time when Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has drawn world attention to the fate of the Amazon, championing its predominantly illegal logging industry, “The Fever” nails the fate of many indigenous Brazilians.

Durban–“Les Misérables,” French director Ladj Ly’s riveting portrayal of racial division and unrest in the banlieues of Paris, won best picture at the 40th Durban Intl. Film Festival Tuesday night.

The jury described the film, which shared the jury prize in Cannes this year, as “a searing portrait of modern France which takes on issues of police brutality, racial tension, and of generations who keep repeating the same mistakes,” heralding its “raw power and complex ideas” while calling it “a piece of bravura filmmaking.” “Les Misérables” also won the award for best screenplay.

Ly’s incendiary film set the tone for a closing ceremony that, as it commemorated Diff’s 40th edition, offered a reminder that a festival born in a spirit of protest against the injustices of apartheid still had a vital role to play in the shaping of the South African and African conscience.

“Diff has...

Madrid — Peru’s La Vida Misma and Paris-based sales agent Luxbox have dropped the first trailer and poster of Melina Leon’s “Canción sin nombre” (“Song Without a Name”), selected this week for the Cannes Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight.

Written by Leon and Michael J. White, “Song Without a Name” sums up some of ambitions and focus of the section under first-time artistic director Paolo Moretti: A first feature, a movie with a strong auteurist voice, and elements of genre in its slow-boiling thriller thrust and dashes of film noir.

“Song Without a Name” is lead produced by La Vida Misma, in co-production with Spain’s Mgc, Peru’s La Mula Producciones and Switzerland’s Bord Cadre, co-producers of “Monos” and “Divine Love,” well received at this year’s Sundance festival, and 2018 Directors’ Fortnight standout “Birds of Passage.”

Sophie Dulac Distribution, the French distributor of Whit Stillman’s “Love & Friendship...

The film that swept through the Sundance Film Festival with stellar reviews has come out with a new trailer. “Divine Love” is a futuristic, neon piece that tackles the tough questions on faith, God, and love.

Read More: ‘Divine Love’ Is A Fluorescent-Coated ‘First Reformed’ [Sundance Review]

The Brazilian film stars Dira Paes, a highly lauded Brazilian actress, with many film roles, television shows, and awards under her belt. Her love interest in the film is played by Julio Machado, known for his roles in “The Seamstress,” “Velho Chico,” and “The Way He Looks,” which won two awards in the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.

Continue reading New Teaser Trailer for Brazilian Neon Styled Drama ‘Divine Love’ at The Playlist.

Film sells to Benelux, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Italy among others.

Memento Films International (Mfi) has sealed a raft of deals on Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro’s third feature Divine Love, following its world premiere in Sundance’s World Cinema Drama Competition.

Set against the backdrop of a dystopian 2027 Brazil and revolving around a deeply religious woman who uses her position in a notary’s office to advance her mission to save struggling couples from divorce.

The film has sold to Benelux (Cinemien), the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Aero Films), Norway (Mer Film), Italy (I Wonder Pictures), Eastern Europe (HBO), Russia,...

Blessed with scene-stealing natural beauty, Western Norway has served as a breathtaking backdrop for international films such as Alex Garland’s sci-fi drama “Ex Machina” and “Mission: Impossible — Fallout.” But local bizzers say there’s more to the region than meets the eye.

“People may already know that our region is picture perfect,” says Sigmund Elias Holm, of the Western Norway Film Commission, but “it’s also a creative hotbed open to international co-productions, whether it’s controversial docs, uncompromising drama or inventive genre films.”

With Norway the Country in Focus at this year’s European Film Market, 10 rising Norwegian producers will be presented as part of the Norwegian Producers Spotlight at the Efm Producers Hub. A number of industry professionals from Western Norway will also be on hand with new projects showcasing what the region has to offer.

Producer Maria Ekerhovd of Mer Film, whose credits include Ciro Guerra...

Extraordinary, but true: Seven of the 10 Brazilian movies selected for this year’s Berlin festival are produced by companies outside Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. They are led by three titles from Pernambuco’s Recife: Desvia Films’ Sundance hit “Divine Love,” Carnaval Filmes’ “Greta” and “Waiting for the Carnival,” also from Rec Produtores Associados.

Put that down to a Brazilian government incentive focus on “regionalization” — “training and film financing for all of Brazil,” says Luana Melgaço, at Belo Horizonte’s Anavilhana, which co-produces Argentine Santiago Loza’s “Brief Story from the Green Planet.” Festival play and international co-production have also given Brazil’s regional cinema more visibility, aiding more screening and distribution, she adds.

Some of these movies exalt regional or rural values: Helvecio Marin’s “Homing” is an homage to the downtrodden, often despised rural folk in his native Minas Gerais. Others portray the ambition of “regional” production.

One of the first measures enacted by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who took office on Jan. 1, was to merge Brazil’s Ministry of Culture with a newly created Ministry of Citizenship, embracing sports, communications, social policy and culture.

While performing artists came under fire from Bolsinaro supporters in the runup to the elections, subject to threats, pickets, and a smoke bomb, it remains to be seen what impact the new government will have on the film industry.

By mid-January, trade bodies were reaching out to key governmental figures to guarantee the continuation of policies for promotion, investment and control of the industry, the creative industries being the second-most popular career choice in Brazil, says producer Fabiano Gullane.

“It’s illusory to think that Brazil’s film industry can do without subsidies,” says Leonardo Barros, at Conspiraçao, one of Brazil’s biggest film-tv producers. “You’d need a 30%-35% market share to start reducing them.

With over 50 films viewed and more coverage coming from the Sundance Film Festival, it’s time to wrap up the first major cinema event in 2019. We already got the official jury and audience winners (here), and now it’s time to highlight our favorites.

One will find our favorites (in alphabetical order), followed by the rest of our reviews. Check out everything below and stay tuned to our site, and specifically Twitter, for acquisition and release date news on the below films in the coming months.

American Factory (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)

When the Rust Belt was hit hard in the financial crisis of 2008, the blue-collar workers of Dayton, Ohio found a savior in a Chinese billionaire. Six years after the lifeblood that was a General Motors plant was shut down, the car-glass manufacturers Fuyao opened up their first American factory in the town, meaning thousands of new job opportunities.

“Despair is a development of pride so great that it chooses one’s certitude rather than admit God is more creative than we are,” says Ethan Hawke’s Reverend Ernst Toller in “First Reformed.” The true depth and test of faith is often only truly measured in times of great struggle, and it’s just one of the heavy ideas that lie underneath the compelling, fluorescent sheen in director Gabriel Mascaro’s (“Neon Bull”) latest film, “Divine Love.” The drama engages with the ever-present theological question of how the faithful endure the silence of God during times of great suffering.

Continue reading ‘Divine Love’ Is A Fluorescent-Coated ‘First Reformed’ [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

Madrid — Tel Aviv-based Cinephil has acquired international sales rights to “Waiting for the Carnival,” in which Marcelo Gomes, one of Brazil’s foremost fiction feature directors, brings a cinematographer’s eye and a loving son’s heart to a portrait of the rampant capitalism which has swept the town of Toritama, as he plumbs the contradictions and excesses of modern-day Brazil.

Produced by the indefatigable Nara Aragão and João Vieira Jr. at Recife’s Carnaval Filmes, “Waiting for the Carnival” world premieres next month in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section. alongside “Greta,” another Carnaval production, as regional production surges in Brazil, spearheaded by cineastes such as, just in Pernambuco, Gomes, Gabriel Mascaró, who has just scored a hit at Sundance with his Evangelical dystopia allegory “Divine Love”; and Kleber Mendonça Filho, whose “Aquarius” competed at the Cannes Festival in 2016.

A filmmaker who studied in England, bearing a large...

The first word that comes to mind when thinking about the thematically complex yet always accessible fiction films from Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro is “sensual.” His previous two features, August Winds (2014) and Neon Bull (2015), luxuriated in flesh-on-flesh couplings in ways that suggested the love scene is still far from a tired old cinematic trope — as long as you manage to suggest that the physical act comes from a place of desire that feels at once overwhelming and the most natural thing in the world.

Fast forward to 2019, or rather 2027, the year ...

“It was 2027. Brazil had changed.” These are the first words spoken in “Divine Love,” delivered in remote voiceover by a strangely impassive-sounding child — and even as the film’s flickering neons and giddy synth score invite some suspension of reality, it’s hard not to wonder what President Jair Bolsonaro has done with the place. For all its creamy, dreamy styling, Gabriel Mascaro’s limber, sensual sci-fi functions as an urgent cautionary allegory. Set in Brazil’s near future, where conservative Evangelical values — precisely those that the country’s recently elected far-right leadership rode to victory — have swept the population, it’s a heady vision of a secular state hanging by a slender thread. Following a premiere in Sundance’s world cinema competition, the film’s blend of on-the-button politics and seductive aesthetics should make it hot festival property.

This being a Mascaro film, there’s nothing dour about “Divine Love...

Last year’s Sundance Film Festival opened with Tamara Jenkins’s Private Life, a thoughtful, witty drama exploring the struggles of infertility faced by a couple in New York City. Premiering at this year’s festival, Gabriel Mascaro’s strange, alluring Divine Love examines similar hardships, albeit in an entirely different place, time, and aesthetic conceit. Set in the near-future of 2027 in Brazil, Joana (Dira Paes) is a deeply religious woman who is trying to conceive a child by any means necessary. Through his exquisite vision, Mascaro tells a curious tale of spiritual commitment, marital strife, and the blurred separation of church and state, leading to an ultimately surprising, powerful conclusion.

After sprinkling magical realist touches in his prior film Neon Bull, the director’s imagination is once again deployed with full force here. With it being only eight years in the future, his predictions are rightfully minor but artfully...