Italian indie producer Vivo Film has boarded André Ristum’s action drama “Tecnicamente Dolce” (“Technically Sweet”), based on a screenplay by Italian legend Michelangelo Antonioni, teaming with Gullane Filmes, Brazil’s biggest independent film production house.
The news comes as “Carnival Is Over,” the awaited thriller drama by “Narcos” director Fernando Coimbra, whose “A Wolf at the Door” was one of the standout Brazilian feature debuts of the last decade, has now entered post-production, shaping up as one of the big arthouse titles to hit festivals from Brazil next year.
Featuring Leandra Leal (“A Wolf at the Door”), Pêpê Rapazote (“Narcos”) and Irandhir Santos (“Tropa de Elite 2”), “Carnival” is a Brazilian-Portuguese co-production that teams Gullane with Fado Filmes, Videodrome, Globo Filmes and Telecine, in association with Tc Filmes. France’s Playtime has started to pre-sell the film.
“This movie is our main title for next year. This is the...
The news comes as “Carnival Is Over,” the awaited thriller drama by “Narcos” director Fernando Coimbra, whose “A Wolf at the Door” was one of the standout Brazilian feature debuts of the last decade, has now entered post-production, shaping up as one of the big arthouse titles to hit festivals from Brazil next year.
Featuring Leandra Leal (“A Wolf at the Door”), Pêpê Rapazote (“Narcos”) and Irandhir Santos (“Tropa de Elite 2”), “Carnival” is a Brazilian-Portuguese co-production that teams Gullane with Fado Filmes, Videodrome, Globo Filmes and Telecine, in association with Tc Filmes. France’s Playtime has started to pre-sell the film.
“This movie is our main title for next year. This is the...
- 5/24/2023
- by Emiliano De Pablos and John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
“Island City,” the latest film from “Lower City” director Sérgio Machado, has been acquired for international sales by Edward Noeltner’s Beverly Hills-based Cinema Management Group. Given a current absence of Brazilian movies selected for the Cannes Festival, the acquisition gives Cmg one of the most awaited of titles coming out of Brazil this year.
It also marks latest title from Brazilian production powerhouse Gullane, whose credits include Cannes Competition players – Hector Babenco’s “Carandiru,” Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor” – as well as Sundance winners, such as Anna Muylaert’s “The Second Mother,” and Berlin Panorama laureates, such as Luis Bolognesi’s “The Last Forest.”
Exploring the foibles and failure of manhood, also the focus of “Lower City,” “Inner City” tells what Cmg describes as the “captivating” tale of three brothers who end up living under the same roof as middle brother Dalberto’s sensual new wife, Anaira (Sophie Charlotte...
It also marks latest title from Brazilian production powerhouse Gullane, whose credits include Cannes Competition players – Hector Babenco’s “Carandiru,” Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor” – as well as Sundance winners, such as Anna Muylaert’s “The Second Mother,” and Berlin Panorama laureates, such as Luis Bolognesi’s “The Last Forest.”
Exploring the foibles and failure of manhood, also the focus of “Lower City,” “Inner City” tells what Cmg describes as the “captivating” tale of three brothers who end up living under the same roof as middle brother Dalberto’s sensual new wife, Anaira (Sophie Charlotte...
- 4/27/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Argentine-born Brazil-based director Hector Babenco wasted little time making his mark on the world of cinema. In just his first handful of films he was recognized by the likes of the Cannes Film Festival and Academy Awards, and was an instant crossover hit upon his arrival in Hollywood.
Below, Variety revisits the director’s body of work.
1973 – “O Fabuloso Fittipaidi” Babenco’s feature debut, this documentary covers the life and career of Brazilian formula one racing driver Emerson Fittipaldi from the beginning of his driving career through to the height of his success and international popularity.
1975 – “King of the Night” A Brazilian man recalls his life story in this, Babenco’s fiction debut. A now old Tertuliano recalls the love stories of his youth including with a sickly girl who moved half a world away, a prostitute and the three daughters of his mother’s friend.
1977 – “Lúcio Flávio” Babenco’s...
Below, Variety revisits the director’s body of work.
1973 – “O Fabuloso Fittipaidi” Babenco’s feature debut, this documentary covers the life and career of Brazilian formula one racing driver Emerson Fittipaldi from the beginning of his driving career through to the height of his success and international popularity.
1975 – “King of the Night” A Brazilian man recalls his life story in this, Babenco’s fiction debut. A now old Tertuliano recalls the love stories of his youth including with a sickly girl who moved half a world away, a prostitute and the three daughters of his mother’s friend.
1977 – “Lúcio Flávio” Babenco’s...
- 1/27/2021
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
“I have already lived my death — all that’s left is to make the movie.” So says celebrated Argentine-Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco in a documentary that, sure enough, attempts to bring closure to a life already concluded. After three decades of living with cancer and related complications, Babenco passed away in 2016 aged 70; directed by his widow Bárbara Paz, “Babenco: Tell Me When I Die” movingly serves as both valedictory and valentine, channeling and preserving the spirit of an artist who vocally feared that his life’s work hadn’t been completed. “Tell Me When I Die” may technically be Paz’s first film rather than the eponymous director’s last, but an intimate air of collaboration colors the whole monochrome affair: As a portrait of a dying man trying to at least co-direct his own farewell, it’s so sorely tender as to be a little discomfiting.
The first documentary...
The first documentary...
- 12/28/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
In late director Hector Babenco’s last film, “My Hindu Friend,” the doctor attending to Willem Dafoe’s character, a cancer-stricken Babenco alter-ego, observes: “Those who have a dream to fulfill have a better chance of survival.”
These sage words best encapsulate what kept Babenco alive for more than three decades after he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer at the age of 38. He made just 11 feature films in his illustrious career but each film was a miracle that kept him going until he passed away at 70 in 2016.
“Cinema was his oxygen; the films were Hector, Hector was his films,” says filmmaker-actress Barbara Paz, who marks her directorial feature debut with “Babenco: Tell Me When I Die,” the Brazilian submission for the Best International Feature Oscar, Best Documentary Oscar, and the Spirit Awards for Documentary. While Brazil has sent many fact-based fiction films to the Oscars, this is the first documentary to represent the country.
These sage words best encapsulate what kept Babenco alive for more than three decades after he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer at the age of 38. He made just 11 feature films in his illustrious career but each film was a miracle that kept him going until he passed away at 70 in 2016.
“Cinema was his oxygen; the films were Hector, Hector was his films,” says filmmaker-actress Barbara Paz, who marks her directorial feature debut with “Babenco: Tell Me When I Die,” the Brazilian submission for the Best International Feature Oscar, Best Documentary Oscar, and the Spirit Awards for Documentary. While Brazil has sent many fact-based fiction films to the Oscars, this is the first documentary to represent the country.
- 12/16/2020
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
As Brazil emerges from its shoot shutdown, the magnitude of its biggest production, Netflix fiction miniseries “Senna,” about Formula One racing genius Ayrton Senna, is rapidly becoming clearer.
The series, now in development, ticks multiple boxes for both Netflix and its producer, São Paulo-based Gullane.
“Language is no longer a barrier, only ambition and quality are barriers,” Francisco Ramos, Netflix VP of Spanish-language Originals in Latin America, said as a keynote at September’s San Sebastian Festival.
“Senna” certainly has ambition. It will be “the first Netflix title from Brazil conceived from its very inception as a global series,” “Senna” producer Fabiano Gullane told Variety during Ventana Sur.
In order for a Netflix title to “be successful abroad, it first has to have an impact in its own country,” Ramos also observed.
Senna can expect to have a huge impact n Brazil. For Gullane, “Other Formula One World Champions were heroes of their sport,...
The series, now in development, ticks multiple boxes for both Netflix and its producer, São Paulo-based Gullane.
“Language is no longer a barrier, only ambition and quality are barriers,” Francisco Ramos, Netflix VP of Spanish-language Originals in Latin America, said as a keynote at September’s San Sebastian Festival.
“Senna” certainly has ambition. It will be “the first Netflix title from Brazil conceived from its very inception as a global series,” “Senna” producer Fabiano Gullane told Variety during Ventana Sur.
In order for a Netflix title to “be successful abroad, it first has to have an impact in its own country,” Ramos also observed.
Senna can expect to have a huge impact n Brazil. For Gullane, “Other Formula One World Champions were heroes of their sport,...
- 12/4/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, best known for his role of Pablo Escobar in "Narcos", is set to visit India in November, as a guest at International Film Festival of India (Iffi) in Goa.
Moura's directorial debut "Marighella" is in debut competition at Iffi this year, and he will be there at the festival to present his film.
Also Read:?Jennifer Lopez looks like an ageless beauty
While at Iffi, Moura and will also attend an In Conversation session titled 'The Magnificent Artist', where he will talk about his journey as an actor and a filmmaker.
The 43-year-old Moura is also known for his performances in the "Elite Squad" film series, besides in the acclaimed Brazilian film "Carandiru" and the Matt-Damon-starrer Hollywood sci-fi hit, "Elysium".
This year, Iffi celebrates its 50th edition and will take place from November 20 to 28.
The jury for International Competition has renowned names such as French filmmaker Robin Campillo,...
Moura's directorial debut "Marighella" is in debut competition at Iffi this year, and he will be there at the festival to present his film.
Also Read:?Jennifer Lopez looks like an ageless beauty
While at Iffi, Moura and will also attend an In Conversation session titled 'The Magnificent Artist', where he will talk about his journey as an actor and a filmmaker.
The 43-year-old Moura is also known for his performances in the "Elite Squad" film series, besides in the acclaimed Brazilian film "Carandiru" and the Matt-Damon-starrer Hollywood sci-fi hit, "Elysium".
This year, Iffi celebrates its 50th edition and will take place from November 20 to 28.
The jury for International Competition has renowned names such as French filmmaker Robin Campillo,...
- 10/23/2019
- GlamSham
London-based sales and production company Taskovski Films has acquired world sales rights to Barbara Paz’s debut documentary, “Babenco — Tell Me When I Die,” which bows in Venice Classics on Sept. 2.
Brazilian helmer Héctor Babenco was a commanding presence on the international film scene, directing pics of the caliber of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” which was Oscar nominated for best picture, director, adapted screenplay and actor, with William Hurt winning in his category. Other notable films by Babenco include “Ironweed” and “Pixote.”
Paz’s film represents a passing of the baton between a mentor and his student, who were also lovers. It is in a way Babenco’s last work. A film that functions as a loving portrait of the man and the filmmaker, but also as a love letter to the filmmaking process itself.
It is a deeply stylized, black-and-white documentary with intricate editing that shuttles between Babenco...
Brazilian helmer Héctor Babenco was a commanding presence on the international film scene, directing pics of the caliber of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” which was Oscar nominated for best picture, director, adapted screenplay and actor, with William Hurt winning in his category. Other notable films by Babenco include “Ironweed” and “Pixote.”
Paz’s film represents a passing of the baton between a mentor and his student, who were also lovers. It is in a way Babenco’s last work. A film that functions as a loving portrait of the man and the filmmaker, but also as a love letter to the filmmaking process itself.
It is a deeply stylized, black-and-white documentary with intricate editing that shuttles between Babenco...
- 9/1/2019
- by Emiliano Granada
- Variety Film + TV
We pay tribute to the film stars and directors from around the world who sadly passed away in 2016.Hector BabencoArgentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco died on July 13 at 70-years-old.He found international success with Brazilian slum drama Pixote (1981), going on to make Kiss Of
We pay tribute to the film stars and directors from around the world who sadly passed away in 2016.
Hector Babenco
Argentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco died on July 13 at 70-years-old.
He found international success with Brazilian slum drama Pixote (1981), going on to make Kiss Of The Spider Woman (1985), for which he earned a best director Oscar nominee and William Hurt earned an Oscar win for best actor.
Babenco went on to direct Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in Ironweed (1987) and Tom Berenger and John Lithgow in At Play In The Fields Of The Lord (1991).
After undergoing cancer treatment in the 1990s, he returned to the director’s chair for films including Brazilian prison...
We pay tribute to the film stars and directors from around the world who sadly passed away in 2016.
Hector Babenco
Argentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco died on July 13 at 70-years-old.
He found international success with Brazilian slum drama Pixote (1981), going on to make Kiss Of The Spider Woman (1985), for which he earned a best director Oscar nominee and William Hurt earned an Oscar win for best actor.
Babenco went on to direct Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in Ironweed (1987) and Tom Berenger and John Lithgow in At Play In The Fields Of The Lord (1991).
After undergoing cancer treatment in the 1990s, he returned to the director’s chair for films including Brazilian prison...
- 12/31/2016
- ScreenDaily
Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies that have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Hector Babenco (1946-2016) - Brazilian Filmmaker. He was nominated for an Oscar for directing Kiss of the Spider Woman. His other movies include Ironweed, Carandiru, At Play in the Fields of the Lord and Pixote. He also acts in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls. He died of a heart attack on July 13. (THR) Chief David Bald Eagle (1919-2016) - Native American Actor. He was a technical advisor for and appears in Dances With Wolves. Earlier he was...
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- 8/3/2016
- by Christopher Campbell
- Movies.com
Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro worked for nearly a decade in his native country before some of his movies started making their way here, most notably Walter Salles' Behind the Sun and the prison drama Carandiru , but it was his role as Xerxes in Zack Snyder's 300 that really got him attention in North America, followed by a short stint on the hit ABC drama "Lost." In his new movie Heleno , Santoro plays Heleno de Freitas, one of Brazil's most famous soccer players during the '40s and '50s whose womanizing and clubbing ways led to his downfall years later, as his dreams were crushed and he ended up dying of syphilis. It's a really groundbreaking performance by Santoro, playing Heleno on the field, in the bedroom with the various women he slept with and then going...
- 12/6/2012
- Comingsoon.net
Rodrigo Santoro at the What To Expect When You're Expecting UK premiere
It would be easy to sum up sexy Rodrigo Santoro as yet another actor with a pretty face and great body but in the eclectic career the Brazilian/Italian actor has been building with various movie roles over the past few years, Santoro is proving to be the kind of the actor that offers up much more than a cinema heartthrob.
Looking back at his past projects, he played Laura Linney’s spectacled love interest in Love, Actually, a transsexual in Hector Babenco’s 2003 film, Carandiru, a castaway on the hit series Lost, bared his stellar physique for the role of Xerxes in the 2007 film, 300,and is currently making audiences swoon in the rom-com What To Expect When You’re Expecting.
While What To Expect has him paired with Jennifer Lopez as a couple preparing for their lives...
It would be easy to sum up sexy Rodrigo Santoro as yet another actor with a pretty face and great body but in the eclectic career the Brazilian/Italian actor has been building with various movie roles over the past few years, Santoro is proving to be the kind of the actor that offers up much more than a cinema heartthrob.
Looking back at his past projects, he played Laura Linney’s spectacled love interest in Love, Actually, a transsexual in Hector Babenco’s 2003 film, Carandiru, a castaway on the hit series Lost, bared his stellar physique for the role of Xerxes in the 2007 film, 300,and is currently making audiences swoon in the rom-com What To Expect When You’re Expecting.
While What To Expect has him paired with Jennifer Lopez as a couple preparing for their lives...
- 5/31/2012
- by nyjimmy67
- The Backlot
In the second of our global cinema series, Phil Hoad looks at how Brazilian films such as José Padilha's Elite Squad series sold gritty social commentary to Hollywood
When Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite), José Padilha's film about Rio de Janeiro's infamous military-police unit, Bope, was released in 2007 the director found himself under siege. Many critics found its full-frontal assault on the issue of favela violence – baldly narrated by the trigger-happy Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura) – too much to take. Variety dubbed it "a one-note celebration of violence-for-good", while Brazilian film critic Marcelo Janot said: "It's really dangerous when a film suggests that the fascist Bope methods are the only solution to 'clean' a city."
They'd probably take the dim view of Padilha's decision to make a sequel, with Nascimento, the Brazilian Dirty Harry, picking up where he left off: crouched behind a car under a storm of gunfire.
When Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite), José Padilha's film about Rio de Janeiro's infamous military-police unit, Bope, was released in 2007 the director found himself under siege. Many critics found its full-frontal assault on the issue of favela violence – baldly narrated by the trigger-happy Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura) – too much to take. Variety dubbed it "a one-note celebration of violence-for-good", while Brazilian film critic Marcelo Janot said: "It's really dangerous when a film suggests that the fascist Bope methods are the only solution to 'clean' a city."
They'd probably take the dim view of Padilha's decision to make a sequel, with Nascimento, the Brazilian Dirty Harry, picking up where he left off: crouched behind a car under a storm of gunfire.
- 8/18/2011
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
- Among the titles that Ioncinema.com will be covering at Tiff and therefore look forward to getting familiarized a little beforehand is Hector Babenco's The Past (O Pasado). A couple of years after Carandiru, I'm glad to see the Brazilian filmmaker (born in Argentina) back in form after a serious cancer-related illness that took him off the map for a couple of years. Based on a novel by the Argentine writer Alan Pauls, The Past is about a couple who decide to separate after 12 years; while the man (played by Gael García Bernal) tries to leave his past behind, his former partner is unable to let go. Click on the poster image below to access the trailer. ...
- 8/30/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
A record-breaking 55 countries -- one more than last year -- have submitted films to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for consideration in the foreign language film category for the 76th annual Academy Awards. A number of the films that have been entered into the Oscar race have already begun to earn a profile on the festival circuit. The Danish entry, Reconstruction, directed by Christoffer Boe, was awarded the Camera d'Or as best first film at this year's Festival de Cannes. Palm Pictures is distributing it domestically. Good Bye, Lenin!, from Germany and director Wolfgang Becker, recently picked up eight awards at the German Film Awards. Several of the entries screened at Cannes this year -- among them Hector Babenco's prison drama, Carandiru, from Brazil and Sony Pictures Classics; the Canadian entry, Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions, which Miramax plans to distribute domestically; and the Afghanistan entry, Osama, directed by Siddiq Barmak, whose distribution rights were picked up by United Artists.
- 10/21/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The festival's official poster may be in Italian this year, but it is France that gets pride of place in the official lineup for the 56th Festival de Cannes, with French films capturing one-quarter of the Competition titles that were unveiled here Wednesday. With the U.S. studios not proffering many movies for selection, Hollywood is represented In Competition by three pictures: Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, a Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow drama starring Sean Penn, Laurence Fishburne, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon; Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny, starring Gallo and Chloe Sevigny; and Gus Van Sant's Elephant, shot with an amateur cast for HBO Films. Festival president Gilles Jacob refuted any suggestion that U.S. filmmakers had boycotted Cannes as a reprisal for France's antiwar stance on Iraq. "Absolutely not," he said. "It's been a difficult year," Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux admitted. As a result, the lineup contains little to set the pulse racing, featuring as it does many directors who have appeared In Competition before. These include Eastwood; Brazil's Hector Babenco, back with his tale of the notorious prison Carandiru, produced by Sony Pictures Classics; Italy's Pupi Avati, who's returning with Il Cuore Altrove (The Heart Is Elsewhere); and Canadian Denys Arcand, with The Barbarian Invasions.
- 4/24/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARIS -- Despite a poster in Italian, it is France that gets pride of place in the official line-up for the 56th Festival de Cannes, with one quarter of the Competition titles unveiled here Wednesday. With the U.S. studios not proffering many movies for selection, Hollywood is represented in Competition by three pictures: Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, starring Sean Penn, Laurence Fishburne, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon; Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny, starring Gallo and Chloe Sevigny; and Gus Van Sant's Elephant, shot with an amateur cast. Festival president Gilles Jacob refuted any suggestion that U.S. filmmakers had boycotted Cannes as a reprisal for France's anti-war stance on Iraq. "Absolutely not," he said. "It's been a difficult year," admitted Cannes's artistic director Thierry Fremaux. As a result, the line-up contains little to set the pulse racing, featuring as it does many directors who have appeared in Competition before. These include Eastwood, Brazil's Hector Babenco, back with his tale of the notorious prison Carandiru, Italy's Pupi Avati who's returning with Il Cuore Altrove (The Heart Is Elsewhere), and Canadian Denys Arcand with The Barbarian Invasions.
- 4/23/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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