Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

Coming Soon 
to a Theater 
Near You

Brazil is the 6th largest film market in the world.
Still, to be a filmmaker in Brazil today is a heroic adventure. By 1990 the share of
domestic movies in the country’s box-office total had fallen to zero with no more than
five films being produced each year. This after a golden period in the ’70s and ’80s, when
Brazilian films were selling up to 50% of all tickets and filmmakers were cranking up 100
new films a year. Finally the national film industry seems to be going through a revival.
The share has grown to 5% and several international prizes are giving new momentum to an
industry that in almost 100 years has more than 2,000 films to show for.
By Alessandra Dalevi

Just seven years after being left for dead the Brazilian movie industry has become the
talk of the world. Two international accolades—the Golden Bear (the highest prize at
the Berlin Film Festival) and an Oscar nomination for best foreign movie—has given
notice that the once celebrated national cinematography is alive and kicking once again.
The Berlin award, a highlight of one of Europe’s three most prestigious film festivals
together with Cannes and Venice, was given to the movie Central do Brasil (called Central
Station in the U.S.), by Brazilian director Walter Salles. The same work rewarded
Brazilian veteran Fernanda Montenegro as best actress with the Silver Bear prize. The last
time Brazil won a best-film award in one of the three major festivals was in 1962 when
Anselmo Duarte’s O Pagador de Promessas (The Promise Keeper) got the Palme d’Or at
the Cannes Film Festival.

Salles’s victory was even more impressive when we consider the heavyweights he competed
against in the German Festival. Among them were the much-acclaimed Coen brothers, veteran
Robert Altman and legendary French director Alain Resnais. There were also Quentin
Tarantino and Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting, which has been nominated for 9
Oscars, including best picture. Fernanda Montenegro also had tough competition, defeating
among others Isabella Rossellini and Anne Bancroft.

Central do Brasil was also a huge success with the public. There was a 10-minute
standing ovation for the Brazilian movie the first time it was shown in an open screening
to 800 people during the festival. The reaction might even have led some jurors to rethink
their votes if had not already been intent on selecting the Salles film.

The Brazilian Oscar nomination went to O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (What’s Up,
Comrade?), released in the United States as Four Days in September. Based on
guerrilla-turned-congressman Fernando Gabeira’s semi-autobiographical book of the same
name, O Que É Isso, Companheiro?, is a loose adaptation of the 1969 kidnapping of
American ambassador to Brazil Charles Elbrick (played in the film by Alan Arkin) by a
group of leftist guerrillas. Elbrick was in captivity for four days while the kidnappers
negotiated with the Brazilian government to exchange him for 15 of their jailed comrades
that they were able to liberate and send by plane to Mexico.

Yankee movie critics have given director Bruno Barreto’s story mostly warm and even
enthusiastic reviews. Miramax, an arm of Disney, the distributor of the film, believes in
its popular appeal and had it booked in 70 screens across the U.S. by mid-February. (At
the same time, in an ironic statement, Brazilian distributors were able to find only three
theatres across the country to re-release the film in Brazil.)

Central do Brasil and O Que É Isso, Companheiro? are just the vanguard
of a larger contingent of fresh Brazilian films being produced right now. In the first
week of March, nearly 150 films were in various stages of completion. Although about 100
projects were still trying to raise funds, 54 others were already in pre-production and
production phases or already in the can ready to be released (see box). 

A variety of styles and themes have been allowed to flourish in the Brazilian film
revival. "A good thing we’ve got today is the plurality both in the origin as in the
styles of the movies," said José Carlos Avellar, president of distributor Riofilme
in a interview with Rio’s daily Jornal do Brasil. "There is no longer just one
center like São Paulo or Rio, or just a handful of filmmakers as it was during the Cinema
Novo (Brazilian New Wave) phase. The overseas market is surprised at the variety."

Salles is of the same opinion. After saying that Brazil has no unifying axis as the
Iranian or Chinese film industries have nowadays, he offers: "If there is a unifying
factor in the new national cinematography, it resides in the desire of talking about a
country called Brazil. The more intrinsically Brazilian our movies are, the greater their
chances to become universal and reach a public beyond our borders."

For All Tastes

Among the new offerings are dramas and melodramas, comedies and farces, historical
pieces and kid stuff, thrillers and experimental works. What has happened? Why suddenly
has this apparent new boom in filmmaking emerged? Why this let’s-make-a-movie fever among
filmmakers, this surge of new talent and the return of veteran directors who seemed
content with early retirement? (Three monsters of Brazilian cinematography, Ruy Guerra,
Carlos [Cacá] Diegues, and Nélson Pereira dos Santos are busy shooting their own films.)

Among those who have recently made their debut in the director’s chair are some very
promising talents, such as Sandra Werneck (Pequeno Dicionário Amoroso—Little
Love Dictionary), Beto Brant (Os Matadores—The Killers), and the Northeastern
duo Paulo Caldas and Lírio Ferreira. Others have yet to release a film, but word of mouth
in the industry has already feature as upstarts of promise. One is star TV reporter Pedro
Bial who is making his debut with Primeiras Estórias, an adaptation of several
short stories by Guimarães Rosa, Brazil’s James Joyce.

Luiz Fernando Carvalho, with Lavoura Arcaica (Archaic Fieldwork) is another name
to watch. Promising too are Eliane Caffé with Kenoma and Karim Ainouz whose script
for Madame Satã (Madam Satan) won a prize from the French government (which had
previously given the same award to Central do Brasil).

A source of inspiration for the new crop of films have been book, both recently
published and older classics. Among literary works being adapted to the big screen are Policarpo
Quaresma, Amor & Cia., Lavoura Arcaica, O Viajante, and Xangô de
Baker Street. This last book, by multitalented TV talk-show host Jô Soares, has just
been released in the U.S. under the title A Samba for Sherlock.

Learning the Trade

At 41, Walter Salles (he used a Jr. at the end of his name until 1994), the director of
Central do Brasil, is not your run-of-the-mill Third-World-country director. He has
lived in Washington, D.C., and studied in Paris between the ages of 6 and 13. The son of
Walter Moreira Salles—owner of Unibanco (the third-largest privately owned bank in
Brazil) and one of Brazil’s wealthiest men—the director preferred to follow his own
call instead of managing the family fortune.

"I am glad I was never compelled to work at the family business," the
economics graduate once said. "My lack of talent in the financial area is so big that
no structure would resist more than two days of my managerial skills."

In 1986 he created VideoFilmes, a documentary and ad agency, which served as a fertile
ground for his blooming as a filmmaker. Waltinho, as he is called among his peers, has
made two previous full-length movies. He made his debut in 1991 with A Grande Arte(The
Great Art), a film with artistically portrayed action scenes featuring knife fights, but
little popular appeal. The English-language film cost $5 million, a fortune by Brazilian
standards.

But it was his 1995 release, Terra Estrangeira (Foreign Land), a $600,000
black-and-white allegory, that made people pay attention to his talent. The film about a
couple who flees Brazil and goes to Portugal after having their savings wiped out by
President Fernando Collor de Mello’s futile confiscatory measures to freeze prices and
eliminate inflation, was featured at a dozen international film festivals, winning the
great prize of the Paris’s International Film Forum.

Central do Brasil, a movie that cost $2.9 million (with a $300,000 contribution
from the Sundance Institute, which in 1996 gave an award to the Marcos Bernstein and João
Emanuel screenplay), shows a Brazil little known even to Brazilians. It tells the story of
Dora (interpreted by 68-year-old Fernanda Montenegro), a retired teacher who makes a
living writing letters that she never sends for illiterate people whose relatives, friends
and lovers are in faraway states.

Dora’s workplace is the Central do Brasil railway station in downtown Rio, a train
terminal for the poor suburbs. The action starts when Dora gets stuck with Josué, the son
of a woman for whom she wrote a letter, after a bus accident kills the boy’s mother. After
some time, Dora decides to seek Josué’s father. Vinicius de Oliveira, 11, whom Salles
found shining shoes at Rio’s Santos Dumont Airport, play the role of Josué. Brazilians
have not yet seen the movie, which is scheduled to have its Brazilian opening on April 3.

The screening of Central do Brasil at the Sundance Film Festival was a big
success. So much so that that it provoked a bidding war among several American
distributors. The impasse was solved by giving the distribution to two companies: Sony
Classics paid $500,000 to get the American and Canadian territories while Miramax put up
$1.2 million to distribute it in Asia, Africa and Latin America, excluding Brazil.

Next stop: the Oscar. Using O Que É Isso, Companheiro? as inspiration—the
movie screened at the Berlin Film Festival without great repercussion last
year—Salles is already thinking about his film being chosen by Brazil to represent
the country at next year’s Oscar. "We need to wait, however," he says.
"First let’s root for O Que É Isso, Companheiro?"

With an eye at the future and the backing of Swiss producer Arthur Cohn (who was also
behind Central do Brasil)Walter Salles has four other projects in the
pre-production stage. There is Wait for Me, an original screenplay about a Mexican
immigrant to the U.S.. The film will be shot in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There is also Últimos
Diálogos (Last Dialogues) by cartoonist-writer Millôr Fernandes, the tale of a
pianist who decides to leave Brazil and then returns to her country 30 years later when
she becomes ill. O Sorriso Etrusco (The Etruscan Smile) is still another project.
Based on a book by Spanish author José Luís Sampedro, it also tells a homecoming story,
in this case of a 70-year-old man who believes that he has cancer. A girl who dreams about
escaping from the circus where she was born is Salles’ fourth movie project. It is based
on a book by French author Christian Bobin.

Salles has been as active as ever. In partnership with Daniela Thomas, Salles is in the
post-production phase of Contagem Regressiva (Countdown), a movie that will be
released at the end of this year. Again with Thomas, he has been putting the final touches
in O Primeiro Dia (The First Day), even though the film is scheduled for release in
September 1999.

The Oscar Connection

Director Bruno Barreto got the good news about his Oscar nomination while editing One
Tough Cop, his latest American effort. With Barreto’s nomination, a Brazilian got the
coveted nod from the Academy of Hollywood for the fourth time. Interestingly enough, when
it last occurred in 1996, another Barreto was the lucky nominee, when Bruno’s brother
Fábio Barreto received an Oscar nod for O Quatrilho. Another nomination occurred
in 1962, when Anselmo Duarte’ s Pagador de Promessas, which had already won the
Cannes Golden Palm, was also nominated by the Academy. Brazil’s other chance at the Oscar
was for Hector Babenco’s The Kiss of the Spider Woman. William Hurt got a best
actor Oscar for his performance in that 1984 movie.

In a recent interview, Barreto stressed the fact (also pointed out by several critics)
that Four Days in September is not a Manichean story: "My film has ambiguous
and controversial characters: a torturer who is not a villain, a bandit who is a hero, a
conscientious man who kidnapped the American ambassador."

After its initial presentation at the Berlin Festival in 1997, every major company in
the U.S. that distributes foreign (including Goldwyin, Sony Classics, First Look, and
Miramax) showed interest in Barreto’s work. Miramax, which ended up becoming the movie’s
American distributor, did not spare any effort to release and divulge the work.

Barreto, who turned 43 this March, has had a long romance behind the cameras. He was
still 11 when he borrowed a camera to shoot his first movie, the short Os Três Amigos
(The Three Friends). At 17 he made his first feature film, Tati, a Garota (Tati,
the Girl), which was a commercial success.

Barreto has recently moved from Los Angeles to New York. He never hid his contempt for
Hollywood, but the move was also helped by the fact that his wife Amy Irving (Steven
Spielberg’s ex wife) is a Broadway star. In an interview with daily O Estado de S.
Paulo, Barreto, who has 12 feature films to his credit, talked about his intentions as
a moviemaker: "After living in L. A. for eight years, I found out that I didn’t have
to settle down in town to make the type of movie that I enjoy. I will never become a
mainstream director using special effects and the like."

Barreto is very famous in Brazil. He directed the 1976 Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos
(Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands), which has the distinction of being the top
grossing Brazilian movie in the domestic market. More than 10.7 million Brazilians went to
see the story of a woman who had to manage two spouses at the same time: one alive and
circumspect, with the other being the lewd mocking ghost of her late first husband. In
comparison, 13 million saw Jaws, the all-time champion being finally threatened by
Titanic, which has just started its run and was seen by 6 million people in a six-week
period.

With 270,000 tickets sold O Que É Isso, Companheiro? became the third most seen
Brazilian movie in Brazil last year, losing only to the historic epic Gerra dos Canudos
(Canudos War) and small intimate piece Pequeno Dicionário Amoroso (Little Love
Dictionary). Two other successful Barreto films were Romance da Empregada (The
Maid’s Romance) and A Estrela Sobe (The Star Rises).

But he had also some bombs, including Gabriela, which starred Italian
actor Marcelo Mastroianni and Sônia Braga. Bruno’s career in the U.S. has been just
modest, with Carried Way with Dennis Hopper being considered his best work in
English. He has also made the political thriller Show of Force .

Since the release of O Que É Isso, Companheiro?, the director—who has
spoken of his political non-commitment more than once—has been crucified by most of
the Brazilian left, which accuses him of tampering with history and presenting a rosy
picture of the military dictatorship by portraying a conscience-stricken torturer. He has
also been occasionally criticized for making plain, too-linear films. In response, Bruno
has made fun of some more hermetic films "in which the best part is the interview
with the director at the end."

Barreto, who will continue to make films in Brazil—his next movie will be Senhorita
Simpson (Miss Simpson) based in a book by Sérgio Sant’Anna—has declared with
bitterness that he doesn’t want to return Brazil and live in a country where "winning
is a sin." In an interview with daily Folha de São Paulo, the director
considered cowardly the justification given by the Brazilian commission who selected his
film for Oscar consideration: "They said they had chosen the movie because Miramax, a
strong independent distributor in the United States, was going to distribute it. They
didn’t have the guts to say that the movie was better than A Ostra e o Vento (The
Oyster and the Wind) and A Guerra de Canudos (The Canudos War). Brazilians suffer
of pathological optimism, premature celebration and lack of self-esteem. This makes us a
nation of losers." 

Barreto revealed that he had chosen a Brazilian composer for the sound track of O
Que É Isso, Companheiro?, but that he changed his mind after this unnamed "very
respected" musician started to "ideologically police the film." Concluded
the director: "The ideological textbook limits people aesthetically. I am forcefully
against any level of political commitment by artists."

An Official Hand

All this recent creative action in the Brazilian movie industry has been credited to a
series of factors. The most important one is the Lei do Audiovisual (Audiovisual Law), a
legislation created in 1993 allowing companies to invest in cultural projects up to 3% of
the money the firms owe the government in income taxes. Thanks to that, the number of
domestic movies released has grown from six in 1994, to 18 in 1995, and 20 last year.

The globalization phenomenon has also caught the Brazilian film industry. Barreto, a
Hollywood insider, has Oscar winning actor Alan Arkin starring in O Que É Isso,
Companheiro? Alberto Graça, who directs O Dia da Caça (The Day of the Prey),
has hired French actress Barbara Schulz to work in the film to be shot in the Amazon. Chatô,
which is still in pre-production, will be shot in several foreign cities, including
London, Paris, and Los Angeles. Scheduled to be directed by Guilherme Fontes, with the
biggest budget ever for a Brazilian movie, it will tell the story of media mogul Francisco
de Assis Chateaubriand (1892-1968), who was the owner of Diários e Emissoras Associados,
a conglomerate of 18 TV stations, 34 newspapers, 36 radio stations, and several magazines.

International co-productions are also becoming more common place. Renowned director Ruy
Guerra is right now in Cuba shooting Estorvo, the film version of composer Chico
Buarque de Hollanda’s book of same name. Estorvo’s executive producer, Jom Tob
Azulay, recently told Jornal do Brasil: "Historically, we are a culture
isolated from the rest of the world. I think that international co-productions are bound
to become a tendency from now on."

In 1994, a mere 350,000 tickets were sold for Brazilian movies in Brazil. Two years
later, that number had jumped to 2.5 million. According to government estimates, 5% of the
70 million movie tickets sold in 1997 were for domestic films. In 1998 this number should
increase, but nobody sees in the near future a return to the golden ’70s when up to 50% of
the tickets sold were for Brazilian movies.

After the battle to shoot a Brazilian film has been successfully won, producers and
directors still have another tough hurdle: to find a free screen willing to show their
movies. With a mere 1,500 screens for a population of 160 million—the United States
has 25,000 screens and a Hollywood blockbuster opens in three times as many theaters in
the U.S. as the total of theaters throughout Brazil—national producers have to
fiercely compete with the Hollywood product, which has a virtual monopoly in the country.
The same scenario occurs in the video stores, where only 15% of the inventory is
Brazilian.

The U.S.-made epic Titanic, which is taking 20% of all available screens and
already setting a record with six million spectators and more than $26 million in box
office within six weeks after its release, continued strong in Brazil’s theaters. However,
Tizuca Yamazaki’s O Noviço Rebelde, the most successful Brazilian film so far this
year, with popular TV comedian Renato Aragão, has drawn around 1.5 million
spectators before being released in the smaller theaters of the Brazilian interior. In
recent years, Brazil’s biggest grossing movies before Titanic were Ghost ($16.7 million)
and Independence Day ($15.3 million).

The one-million-spectator mark has been like a mirage for most recent Brazilian movies.
Carla Camurati’s Carlota Joaquina, Princeza do Brasil and Oscar-nominated O
Quatrilho both drew 1.2 million viewers, but they were the exception. More typical is
that a domestic film cannot attract even 100,000 spectators.

The most popular Brazilian film of all times, Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos (Dona
Flor and Her Two Husbands) brought more than 10.7 million Brazilians to the movie
theaters but this was in the ’70s, when the national movie industry was getting the lion’s
share of the box office, with about 50% of the box-office total.

Luiz Carlos Lacerda, director of For All, is one of those waiting in line to get
its turn in a theater. Says he: "I am expecting a definition from Columbia, which
released 85 American movies in 1997 and intends to release another 100 this year."

Director Hector Babenco, best known for his film Pixote, is leading a movement
to demand more protection from the government. He argues that other countries like France,
Germany and Argentina have been doing this for years. "We cannot, in name of
globalization leave movies unprotected," he recently told Jornal do Brasil.
"The film industry is a source of employment. There is no reason to keep the cinema
as the market’s virgin when even the auto industry is protected by import taxes."

At the beginning of March the domestic movie industry got another extra help from the
government, which has now mandated that theaters must reserve at least 49 days to show
Brazilian films. (Previously, theater owners could get by with a 35-day run for Brazilian
movies.) According to Moacyr de Oliveira, secretary of the Culture Ministry’s Audiovisual
Department, the President himself changes the quota every year. "The number has
increased due to the greater cultural production," Oliveira explained.

Oliveira responds to the critics that there would not be the need for any quota if the
distributors guaranteed an ample distribution and exhibition of Brazilian movies. For
those caught disobeying the law, there is a 10% fine over the weekly income at the
box-office. However, Oliveira showed that the presidential decree has no teeth since
nobody controls or enforces the quota: "We don’t know it the law is being met. What
we know is that only 5% of the total number of tickets sold in 1997 were for Brazilian
movies, which is too little." Around 70 million movie tickets were sold in Brazil
last year. 

As expected, theater owners protested. Roberto Darze, president of the Exhibitors
Federation, also complained because he had not been told about the change. "Our
sector is against any quota for the showing of movies," he declared before
guaranteeing that there is no discrimination against the Brazilian-made product.

Most of the exhibitors seem to doubt that the domestic movie industry can produce
enough to meet the new government-imposed quota of 49 days. For the multiplexes that have
no more than seven screens, a special formula in which some screens can have as little as
28 days of the domestic product exists. Multiplexes with more than seven screens need a
minimum of 35 days of Brazilian movies for every screen.

According to the 80-year old Severiano Ribeiro group, which has 140 screens in 13 state
capitals, quotas don’t make sense. Quality and economic viability should be the sole
criteria, says Arturo Neto, director of the company. He admits, however, that there will
be no problem to meet the quota if there is a variety of new movies. Says he: "The
public is the one who determines when a film is exhibited. None of us is so insensitive as
to stop showing a movie that is getting a good audience."

The difficulty to book a Brazilian movie became so frustrating to producer Luiz Carlos
Barreto, the patriarch of the Barreto moviemaking family (which includes sons Bruno and
Fabio and wife Lucy) that last February he called a press conference in which he chastised
the exhibitors and called theaters film motels due to the short time that they show
national films. He was livid because he could not find more than one screen in Rio to
re-release his son’s movie O Que E Isso, Companheiro? after the film won a
nomination for the Oscar.

On a more optimistic note, some people in the industry are betting that the larger
number of Brazilian films being produced will coincide with a dramatic expansion of movie
theaters in the country with the recent multiplication of multiplexes with up to 20
screens each. More than 600 new screens are being promised for the next two years.

A Little History

The movies were still called omniograph when Cariocas (Rio residents) had their
first glimpse of the moving images that would become the most popular entertainment of the
first half of the century. It happened on July 8, 1896.

By 1908, when Hollywood didn’t yet exist, Brazilians were already making movies.
Humberto Mauro was Brazil’s first great filmmaker. His masterpiece Ganga Bruta (Rough
Gangue) was released in 1933. In 1929, Mario Peixoto, another talented pioneer had already
filmed the silent Limite (Limit).

The first successful movies with broad popular appeal would appear in the ’40s.
Comedians Oscarito and Grande Otelo became huge box-office hits between 1944 and 1955.
They were but two of the stars reunited by Atlântida, a studio from Rio responsible for
popularizing a non-sophisticated and straightforward comedic film genre known as chanchada.

In response to the lowbrow offerings of Atlântida, a group from Sao Paulo led by
magnate Francisco "Ciccilo" Matarazzo Sobrinho created the Companhia Vera Cruz
in 1949. They hired foreign technicians and brought back to Brazil Alberto Cavalcanti, who
at this time had already made a name as a great filmmaker in Europe.

Vera Cruz was short-lived. Lavish spending, clashing egos, less-than-popular stories
and a lack of a distribution structure led to the Sao Paulo studio’s demise. By 1954 it
had closed its doors even though the studio built in São Bernardo do Campo in the São
Paulo ABC region continued making movies under the name of Brasil Filmes. Their only big
success was O Cangaceiro (The Bandit), a release from 1953, which became also an
international triumph.

At the end of the ’50s, inspired by Italian neorealism, Brazil saw the birth of Cinema
Novo (New Cinema), whose motto was: "a camera in the hand and an idea in the
head". The phrase has been often attributed to Gláuber Rocha, the Cinema Novo’s most
talented filmmaker. However, Rocha himself gave authorship of the phrase to Paulo Cezar
Saraceni, another leader of the movement.

The Cinema Novo would come to full bloom in the next decade. The Brazilian new wave
made movies strong in social content with little concern for technique or broad popular
appeal. They were perfect pieces to win art film festivals and become cult movies.
Gláuber Rocha (1939-1981), considered a genius by many, became the main exponent of this
so-called "aesthetics of hunger."

Rocha’s 1968 film, O Dragão da Maldade Contra o Santo Guerreiro (The Dragon of
Evil Against the Warrior Saint), won him the best director’s prize at the 1969 Cannes
Festival. He also received an award in Czechoslovakia for his first movie, Barravento (1961).
The second one, Deus e o Diabo na Terra do

Sol (God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun) (1963), a synthesis of Brazil’s
rural predicament, is part of the collection of the best movies of all time from the New
York Museum of Modern Art.

The contemporary Brazilian cinema had its heyday in the ’70s and the beginning of the
’80s. During that period the film industry was producing some 100 movies a year. The
participation of the national film industry on Brazilian screens during the ’70s varied
from 35% to 50% a year. This number fell to zero in 1990, but it has been slowly climbing
up.

Next Attractions

From ready-to-shoot to ready-to-show there are 54 movies in the
line of production in Brazil right now. We don’t include here some 100 other titles still
trying to secure financing. 

In Pre-Production

Através da Janela (Through the Window) by Tata Amaral

Brava Gente Brasileira (Brave Brazilian People), by Lúcia Murat

Castelo Ratimbum (Ratimbum Castle) by Cao Hamburger

Chatô (Assis Chateaubriand) by Guilherme Fontes

Cinderela (Cinderella) by Paulo Aragão

Um Copo de Cólera (A Glass of Rage) by Aluísio Abranches

Eu, Tu, Eles (I, You, They) by Andrucha Waddington

Guerra e Liberdade (War and Liberty) by Nelson Pereira dos Santos

Lara by Ana Maria Magalhães

Lavoura Arcaica (Archaic Fieldwork) by Luís Fernando Carvalho

O Matador (The Killer) by José Henrique Fonseca

Mauá, o Imperador e o Rei (Mauá, the Emperor and the King) by Sérgio Rezende

Negociação Mortal (Mortal Business) by Marcelo Taranto

A Partilha (Distribution) by Daniel Filho

Páscoa em Março (Easter in March) by Ana Carolina

O Poeta da Vila (Noel Rosa, Vila’s Poet) by Ricardo Van Steen

Santos Dumont by Marcone Simões Pereira

Vox Populi (People’s Voice) by Marcelo Lafitte

Xangô de Baker Street (Baker Street’s Xangô) by Miguel Faria

Being shot:

Até Que a Vida Nos Separe (Until Life Do Us Apart) by José Zaragoza

Dois Córregos (Two Brooks) by Carlos Reichenbach

Estorvo (Hindrance) by Ruy Guerra

Orfeu (Orpheus) by Cacá Diegues

O Viajante (The Traveler) by Paulo César Saraceni

In Post-Production

Adágio do Sol (Sun Adagio) by Xavier de Oliveira

Amor & Cia. (Love &Co.) by Helvécio Ratton

Uma Aventura do Zico (An Adventure of Zico) by Antônio Carlos Fontoura

Boleiros (Rascals) by Ugo Giorgetti

Brasil 97 by Bia Lessa

Coração Iluminado (Enlightened Heart) by Hector Babenco

O Dia da Caça (The Day of the Prey) by Alberto Graça

Histórias do Flamengo (Flamengo’s Stories) by Carlos Niemeyer

A Hora Mágica (The Magic Hour) by Guilherme de Almeida Prado

Menino Maluquinho 2 (Little Crazy Boy 2) by Fernando Meirelles

No Coração dos Deuses (In Gods’ Hearts) by Geraldo Moraes

Paixão Perdida (Lost Passion) by Walter Hugo Khouri

O Primeiro Dia (The First Day) by Daniela Thomas and Walter Salles

La Serva Padrona (The Boss Servant) by Carla Camurati

O Toque do Oboé (The Sound of the Oboe) by Cláudio MacDowell

Ready, waiting for release:

Alô (Hello) by Mara Mourão

Amores (Loves) by Domingos de Oliveira

O Amor Está no Ar (Love Is in the Air) by Amylton Dias de Almeida

Bela Donna (Pretty Lady) by Fábio Barreto

Central do Brasil (Central Station) by Walter Salles

Encontros de Demônios (Meeting of Demons) by Cecílio Neto

As Feras (The Beasts) by Walter Hugo Khouri

For All by Luiz Carlos Lacerda and Buza Ferraz

A Grande Noitada (The Great Night Out) by Denoir de Oliveira

Kenoma by Eliane Caffé

Lua Cambará (Red Moon) by Rosemberg Cariry 

Policarpo Quaresma by Paulo Thiago

Primeiras Estórias (Fist Stories) by Pedro Bial

Tiradentes (Brazil’s Independence Martyr) by Osvaldo Caldeira

Traição (Treason) by Arthur Fontes, Cláudio Torres and José Henrique Fonseca

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