Tense Presidential Election, Focus on Domestic Audiences, and Oscars Closer Than Ever: 10 Key Points from the Rio Film Festival

Hosting a film festival during a historic presidential election that will shape the country's future is a heavy demand, but this year's Rio Film Festival carefully and purposefully managed to define the boundaries between focusing on cinema and today's industry, without ignoring tomorrow's issues. This […]

This year's Rio Film Festival was marked by the historic presidential election and the promising presence of Brazilian filmmakers and producers focused on co-production.

Hosting a film festival during a historic presidential election that is destined to shape the future of the entire country is a heavy ask, but this year's Rio Film Festival was able to carefully and purposefully define the boundaries between focusing on today's cinema and industry and ignoring tomorrow's issues.

This year's edition, which took place from October 1 to 11, was bookended by two eccentric films in Javier Ambrosi's La Bola Negra and Jordan Firstman's Club Kid, introducing audiences to the promising crop of Brazilian cinema. Major national titles at the festival include Toronto's Gabriel Martinez's From My Son, Alan Debreton's The World of Gogo, Oscar hopeful The World of Gogo, Enoch Carvalho and Mateus Farias' Locarno-winning Riverside, and Venice's Locarno-winning Riverside by Lion Coeur Piccolo and Venice Coeur Piccolo Dicolorcon. RELATED STORIES Rachel Zegler recalls her 'Evita' audition while on Broadway in 'Romeo + Juliet': 'I read 40 pages of material' Neil Patrick Harris for 'Damn Yankees' Broadway Revival

RioMarket's brightly lit aisles were also filled with industry experts and aspiring producers lining up for sessions on important topics such as artificial intelligence and audience development. Via TikTok, below are variety highlights from this year's festival, from the strong presence of young audiences to narrower bridges to Spain and the market's focus on domestic audiences. Popular in Variety

There was no escape. With the first weekend of the festival coinciding with Brazil's presidential election, almost every conversation overheard at RioMarket in the early days of the event was laced with politics. After the first round, in which incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva lost to far-right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro by less than 2 percentage points, Variety published an in-depth report on the possible consequences of Bolsonaro's ruling for the country's growing cinema. Two days later, Variety also reported how several prominent figures in Brazilian cinema — including Kleber Mendonça Filo, Wagner Moura, Fernando Meirelles and Petra Costa — signed an open letter calling international attention to the upcoming runoff election on October 25.

Despite the tensions caused by the elections, in the days after the first round of voting, there was an underlying sense of camaraderie and hope at the festival. Several filmmakers have taken to the stage at the festival to show their support for Lula, including "Club Kid" director Jordan Furstman, who held up his hand in an "L" sign as he introduced the festival's closing film at the Odeon on Saturday night.

Audience development requires screening rooms

In many of the panels this year at the festival's industry sidebar, RioMarket, executives and key producers repeatedly mentioned the need to develop an audience in Brazil. It was agreed that the country offers aspiring cinema-goers, with many young audiences well-versed in international cinema thanks to healthy online communities, but there is still a challenge to convert those film fans into cinema-goers. At one of the first festival industry meetings, an event in conversation with director Marcelo Gómez and festival manager Rodrigo Santoro, Ilda Santiago brought up a hot topic: the low number of cinema screens in Brazil.

The country currently has 3,538 screens, 43% of which are concentrated in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Considering Brazil's population of over 214 million people, this number is still very low. For reference, the United States has 35,000 to 40,000 commercial screens for a population of 349 million, and France has 6,355 screens for a population of 69 million.

After two years of international success with "I'm Still Here" by Walter Salz and "Secret Agent" by Kleber Mendonça Filho, this year saw Brazil's participation in international festivals with high co-productions. Examples include "Elephants in the Fog" by Abinash Bikram Shah, "Nerciso" by Marcelo Martinsi, and Benjamin Neistadt. "Glaxo", "Back to Buenos Aires" by Marco Beckis, "La Prae" by Dominguez Sotomayor and "Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building" by Bruno Santamaria Razo.

This move was confirmed at the festival. Prominent production banners such as MyMama Entertainment and Bubbles Project announced upcoming projects during the event, with the former working on Andrea Asca's Locarno-winning film "Ibicaba: O Paraíso Prometido" starring Ella Ramp and Julio Andrade, the latter gearing up to shoot "Everything Is" and "All I Love You" and the latter preparing to film Everything. Beautiful.” Several manufacturers have also spoken on industry panels about the importance of finding global partners and alternative financing structures, especially in times of political instability that may see Brazil's public capital shrink or collapse in the near future.

While international co-productions are on the rise, Brazilian producers have emphasized the importance of making films for their domestic audiences. Brazil is a huge market, with an enthusiastic and eager audience that still mainly consumes foreign films and TV, but savvy producers and filmmakers are trying to change that. Gustavo Mello, a partner at the main label Boutique Filmes, told Variety that since the highly successful Netflix series "3%", Brazil remains their top priority. We need to produce for Brazil and must maintain our focus. "When we do this well, our work travels."

Festival director Ilda Santiago echoes this move in the Brazilian Premiere programs, the festival's section dedicated to Brazilian cinema, which has expanded into several subcategories in recent years. "Brazilian cinema is not a unique thing," he tells Variety. "Our cinema is plural. I don't want the audience to say that they are going to the cinema to watch a Brazilian movie. "I want them to look for genre, drama, coming-of-age movies that happen to be Brazilian."

In a year when the success of Kane Parsons' "Back Rooms" and Carrie Barker's "Obsession" sent the industry into a frenzy, there is a latent hope that young audiences will return to the cinema. This proved to be the case in Rio, where young cinephiles lined up outside the festival halls, eagerly discussing upcoming screenings while scrolling through their Letterboxd accounts. Interestingly, young audiences can not only be seen screening international blockbusters, but also lining up for more obscure festival titles and filling industry sessions at RioMarket. It was heartening to watch the school students at a key industry meeting on women in cinema held in partnership with Film Promotion Europe, and to hear the buzz of excited cinemagoers getting ready to enter the free screening of Gogo's World at the beautiful FGV.

Pablo Guiza Costinger, founder of the Morbido Film Festival and executive director of the Fantastic booth at the Marque de Filme, was in Rio for the first time to launch Fantastic: Brasil at the festival. The new industry platform for genre cinema in the country is a partnership between the amazing booths of Cannes, Rio Bazaar, Festival de Rio, FICCI Industria, the #LINK Documentary Industry Summit, Morbido Film Festival and SAGES, and launched three calls for emerging voices in Latin American genre cinema.

Brazilian cinema highlights at this year's festival were also genre titles, including Majo do Paiva and Bernardo Florim's Diário do Fogo, Ricardo Alves Jr.'s psychological thriller The French Teacher, and Gustavo Weinager and Guercius Guedner's B-movie Buvel.

While horror remains king in terms of genre films attracting festival audiences, this year's program showed how Brazilian filmmakers are taking interesting risks in other genres. Tomás Portela's Overman is Brazil's answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe - an adaptation of the comic strip by famed cartoonist Laerte, it stars Kako Seokler as a sex-addicted superhero who includes bad guys who torment citizens with stinky, capitalist farts.

Speaking of delightful, First Girlfriend is another highlight of the festival. This romantic comedy sees City of God director Katia Lund and star Jonathan Hagensen team up to direct a charming and deeply Brazilian love story led by a promising young cast that includes Faíska Alves, Cecilia Sanchez, Pedro Morena. Carlos Saldana ushered Brazil into blockbuster adventure film territory with the ambitious Brazilian finale, 100 Days. in which he narrates Amir Klink's pioneering crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a small rowing boat.

Given the heavy Spanish presence in Rio, it was only fitting that Javier Ambrosi and Javier Calvo opened "La Bola Negra" at Cannes this year. Veteran Spanish producer Esther García, a long-time collaborator of Pedro Almodóvar, presided over the jury of this year's Premiere Brasil, while several notable Spanish films played in the program. Titles include Diego Luna's Ashes, Julia De Paz Solvas' The Good Girl, and Ian De La Rosa's Ivan and Hadome.

Santiago tells Variety that the relationship between Spain and Brazil is a "natural" one, a bridge that is constantly being strengthened by Brazilians' growing identification with their Latin roots and interest in Spanish-language fiction. "Today, I see young people in Brazil actively trying to learn Spanish, something I didn't see 10 years ago." "There's this latent desire of the new generation of Brazilians to connect with their Latino heritage and cultural identity," he says.

He adds: "Brazilian cinema wants to talk with Latin cinema and Latin cinema wants to use the big market that is Brazil. "Spain integrates a lot of Spanish-language cinema, and I believe it is the ideal partner that will allow us to grow as an industry and create more and more partnerships with the world."

If you turned a corner in Rio's bustling Botafogo neighborhood, you'd expect long lines for festival blockbusters like "No Wild Horse" or "Coward," but while those films still drew huge crowds, some of the longest lines at this year's festival were for films that told true Brazilian stories. Pedro Waddington's Fernanda, based on the legendary Central Station actress Fernanda Montenegro, was a hit on the stage, with buzzed-about Prime Video titles including Marilia Mendonsa - M Centimento Loco, Mariaco, Tranaco, Ric Rochaco and Casara, "Trano" and "Reik Ruchako" and "Elzao" and "Kazara, Terrano" are among the most popular movies. "Alosinasao" Caetano.

Over the past two years, thanks to "I'm Still Here" and "Secret Agent," the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has recognized the unique passion of Brazilians for cyberspace. Last year, Academy CEO Bill Kramer attended the Rio Film Festival for the first time and said the furore over Salles was "historic." He added: "It was exciting to see the growth of social media channels and the growth of audiences in Latin America." "It was incredible to watch the videos of people stopping their carnival party to look at the prizes."

This year, the festival reiterated its partnership with the Academy by inviting Michael Benedict, Director of Member Relations and Awards Management, and Taylor Morales, Assistant Director of Film Archives – Film Preservation and Public Access, to speak at RioMarket. Academy representatives spoke about Brazil's importance to the organization, and Benedict noted their "increasing" focus on "world cinema" after telling interested audiences how to submit their films to the Oscars.