Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Feb 7, 2015 19:53:29 GMT -6
variety.com/2015/dirt/news/berlin-brazilian-films-propel-into-wider-international-territory-1201425600/
The 67th Berlin festival looks set to go down in history for marking Latin America’s coming of age. Sporting 21 features in Competition, Panorama and Forum, Berlin’s 2015 Latin presence — comprising movies from Latin America, Spain and Portugal — outranks Asia (20) and North America (15). Including all of Berlin’s official sections and Co-Production Market, Ibero-America boasts 63 films, 49 of them features, its highest movie count in memory.
Brazil leads the charge. Though lacking competition players, it has four films in Panorama, including its opener, Lirio Ferreira’s oneiric tale of impossible love “Blue Blood.” Five more works and two installations play Forum or Forum Expanded.
Berlin has always embraced Brazil, and Latin America in general. Wieland Speck, head of the Panorama, which focuses on international cinema, and Christoph Terhechte at the Forum, which frames younger filmmakers, both visit Brazil annually.
Success breeds success: Jose Padilha’s “Elite Squad” won Berlin’s 2008 Golden Bear, Daniel Ribeiro’s “The Way He Looks” last year’s Teddy. The year’s Latin presence “represents a virtuous circle. If a country sees that its cinema functions well at a festival, it will want to launch more films at it,” says Javier Martin, a Berlinale programmer for much of Latin America.
But, he adds, the films of Brazil and Latin America in general at Berlin is also “the confirmation of longer-terms trends over the past years.”
Funding has increased across Latin America, but nowhere more so than Brazil. Last July, Brazil president Dilma Rousseff announced a $1.2 billion reals ($470 million) package of film and TV incentives for Brazil. That’s a state backing that producers in some diminished European film powers — think Spain — would die for.
Channeled through a Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual, run by state agency Ancine, much state funding now targets art films.
“A small amount of Brazilian films are comedy blockbusters, but most are films of more artistic ambition,” says producer Renato Ciasca (“Blue Blood”).
“Brazil’s production sector has achieved maturity, making around 100 movies a year,” says Fabiano Gullane, who produced “The Second Mother.” “For the last 15 years, Brazilian film-TV agency Ancine has really put its back behind the industry, which can look to other funding like RioFilme, SP Cine in Sao Paulo or Paulinia Polo.”
For nearly a decade, promo org Cinema do Brasil has partly paid for producers to attend festivals.
“For the last nine years, I’ve been attending pretty well all the significant markets in and outside Latin America, which has sparked relationships, and co-productions,” says Paula Cosenza at BossaNovaFilms, which produced “Absence” with Chile’s Wood Producciones and Thierry Lenouvel’s Cine-Sud Promotion in France.
Also, a remarkable young generation of directors has emerged throughout Latin America. While the directors of Brazil’s four Berlin Panorama pics — Ferreira (“Blue Blood”), Anna Muylaert (“The Second Mother”), Chico Teixeira (“Absence”) and Walter Salles (docu “Jia Zhang-ke: A Guy From Fenyang”) — are all around or above 50, the Forum features from Marcelo Pedroso, whose “Brazilian Dream” plays Forum, dates from 2007; “Seashore’s” Filipe Matzenbacher and Marcio Reolon are tyro feature directors.
“There is a very new point to Berlin’s 2015 selection of Brazilian films,” says the festival’s Brazilian programmer, Jose Carlos Avellar. “The films are very different one from another (due to a) significant number of independent low-budget films, documentaries and fictions reacting to U.S. box office dominance.”
“Festivals are paying greater attention to ‘no fiction,’ films between fiction and documentary,” programmer Martin says. “For practical, economic reasons, this fits well with Latin America’s production. It’s a question of supply and demand.”
Regional production is also powering up in Brazil. “Blue Blood” tapped coin from Pernambuco tourist and culture departments. Forum feature “Brazilian Dream” was produced there.
“Seashore” received municipal funding from Porto Alegre, where it shot, and Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southern-most state, which produces around 20 features a year.
“The film is emblematic of filmmakers gaining momentum, making productions outside the major centers, giving rise to new engaging authors and ideas set in locations that must be discovered and developed,” says FiGa/Br’s Rafael Sampaio.
“Brazil has finally reached its continental promise, giving artists from far-flung areas the possibility of emerging in the Brazilian and international scene,” agrees FiGa co-head Sandro Fiorin.
“The Berlin presence is the result of the quantity of its quality films,” says Dezenove’s Sara Silveira.
But challenges remain. Brazil’s 2014 box office grew for the ninth consecutive year running, soaring 11.5% to $764.7 million, per Paulo Sergio Almeida at FilmeB. But Brazilian art or crossover films rarely break out in their domestic market.
Per Gullane, Brazilian cinema now has to leverage festival and sales agent interest into acquisitions from foreign distributors who then promote their Brazilian titles. Here, Cinema do Brasil’s distribution support scheme, offering coin for P&A on local films, is most surely already helping.
The 67th Berlin festival looks set to go down in history for marking Latin America’s coming of age. Sporting 21 features in Competition, Panorama and Forum, Berlin’s 2015 Latin presence — comprising movies from Latin America, Spain and Portugal — outranks Asia (20) and North America (15). Including all of Berlin’s official sections and Co-Production Market, Ibero-America boasts 63 films, 49 of them features, its highest movie count in memory.
Brazil leads the charge. Though lacking competition players, it has four films in Panorama, including its opener, Lirio Ferreira’s oneiric tale of impossible love “Blue Blood.” Five more works and two installations play Forum or Forum Expanded.
Berlin has always embraced Brazil, and Latin America in general. Wieland Speck, head of the Panorama, which focuses on international cinema, and Christoph Terhechte at the Forum, which frames younger filmmakers, both visit Brazil annually.
Success breeds success: Jose Padilha’s “Elite Squad” won Berlin’s 2008 Golden Bear, Daniel Ribeiro’s “The Way He Looks” last year’s Teddy. The year’s Latin presence “represents a virtuous circle. If a country sees that its cinema functions well at a festival, it will want to launch more films at it,” says Javier Martin, a Berlinale programmer for much of Latin America.
But, he adds, the films of Brazil and Latin America in general at Berlin is also “the confirmation of longer-terms trends over the past years.”
Funding has increased across Latin America, but nowhere more so than Brazil. Last July, Brazil president Dilma Rousseff announced a $1.2 billion reals ($470 million) package of film and TV incentives for Brazil. That’s a state backing that producers in some diminished European film powers — think Spain — would die for.
Channeled through a Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual, run by state agency Ancine, much state funding now targets art films.
“A small amount of Brazilian films are comedy blockbusters, but most are films of more artistic ambition,” says producer Renato Ciasca (“Blue Blood”).
“Brazil’s production sector has achieved maturity, making around 100 movies a year,” says Fabiano Gullane, who produced “The Second Mother.” “For the last 15 years, Brazilian film-TV agency Ancine has really put its back behind the industry, which can look to other funding like RioFilme, SP Cine in Sao Paulo or Paulinia Polo.”
For nearly a decade, promo org Cinema do Brasil has partly paid for producers to attend festivals.
“For the last nine years, I’ve been attending pretty well all the significant markets in and outside Latin America, which has sparked relationships, and co-productions,” says Paula Cosenza at BossaNovaFilms, which produced “Absence” with Chile’s Wood Producciones and Thierry Lenouvel’s Cine-Sud Promotion in France.
Also, a remarkable young generation of directors has emerged throughout Latin America. While the directors of Brazil’s four Berlin Panorama pics — Ferreira (“Blue Blood”), Anna Muylaert (“The Second Mother”), Chico Teixeira (“Absence”) and Walter Salles (docu “Jia Zhang-ke: A Guy From Fenyang”) — are all around or above 50, the Forum features from Marcelo Pedroso, whose “Brazilian Dream” plays Forum, dates from 2007; “Seashore’s” Filipe Matzenbacher and Marcio Reolon are tyro feature directors.
“There is a very new point to Berlin’s 2015 selection of Brazilian films,” says the festival’s Brazilian programmer, Jose Carlos Avellar. “The films are very different one from another (due to a) significant number of independent low-budget films, documentaries and fictions reacting to U.S. box office dominance.”
“Festivals are paying greater attention to ‘no fiction,’ films between fiction and documentary,” programmer Martin says. “For practical, economic reasons, this fits well with Latin America’s production. It’s a question of supply and demand.”
Regional production is also powering up in Brazil. “Blue Blood” tapped coin from Pernambuco tourist and culture departments. Forum feature “Brazilian Dream” was produced there.
“Seashore” received municipal funding from Porto Alegre, where it shot, and Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southern-most state, which produces around 20 features a year.
“The film is emblematic of filmmakers gaining momentum, making productions outside the major centers, giving rise to new engaging authors and ideas set in locations that must be discovered and developed,” says FiGa/Br’s Rafael Sampaio.
“Brazil has finally reached its continental promise, giving artists from far-flung areas the possibility of emerging in the Brazilian and international scene,” agrees FiGa co-head Sandro Fiorin.
“The Berlin presence is the result of the quantity of its quality films,” says Dezenove’s Sara Silveira.
But challenges remain. Brazil’s 2014 box office grew for the ninth consecutive year running, soaring 11.5% to $764.7 million, per Paulo Sergio Almeida at FilmeB. But Brazilian art or crossover films rarely break out in their domestic market.
Per Gullane, Brazilian cinema now has to leverage festival and sales agent interest into acquisitions from foreign distributors who then promote their Brazilian titles. Here, Cinema do Brasil’s distribution support scheme, offering coin for P&A on local films, is most surely already helping.