"Rule 34" and "Tengo Suenos Electricos" win big at Locarno

by Nathaniel R

the sexually charged "Rule 34" wins Locarno

Our favourite film festival correspondent, Elisa Giudici, couldn't make it to Locarno this year so we are here to just report on the winners! The top prize went to a sexually provocative drama from Brazil called Rule 34 (only the second Brazilian film to ever win Locarno) while a Costa Rican film called Tengo Suenos Electricos won three prizes from the jury.

Will any of the following titles show up as Oscar submissions for International Feature Film? Who can say. A little bit about each winner after the jump...

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Sundance: 'The Territory' is a winner!

by Cláudio Alves

Settlers fight their way into the land. Inspired by colonialist ideals of manifest destiny, they go on a journey of discovery and conquest. This is how new countries are born, with blades cutting down the wilderness and burning paths. However, the settlers are not alone. Deep in the mysterious unknown, indigenous people reside in a land that's been their home for millennia. These adventurers wear cowboy-like hats while their enemies, abstracted into an exotic other, fight with feathers in their hair. The two forces clash, but theirs is not a fight of equals. Invaders calling themselves heroes have numbers and firepower on their side, centuries-old systems built to perpetuate violent domination. Even their bodies carry weapons, sicknesses they spread to the natives, killing them in active genocide. 

No, this is not an old-fashioned western of less enlightened days nor a chronicle of historical crimes. This is the story of our days. This is The Territory…

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Sundance: 'Mars One' is a Brazilian gem!

by Cláudio Alves

Looking over the city she calls home, Tércia lingers and, in turn, the camera lingers on her. It's a beautiful, if humble, image, her silhouette against a celestial painting. The twilight sun makes watercolors out of the skyline, yellow bleeding into blue, gray buildings falling into the cold penumbra. The contemplative frame can contain many meanings, and director Gabriel Martins doesn't force the audience's hand. We're free to surmise what we want from the picture. Speaking from a personal place, I couldn't help but feel a melancholic kinship. Maybe it's projection, but I recognized myself in Tércia, looking at a seemingly peaceful world I thought I knew until it proved me wrong...

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Interview: Aly Muritiba on Brazil's queer Oscar submission "Private Desert"

by Nathaniel R

Sometimes the long lead up to a movie's release can alter a story. In the case of Aly Muritiba's Private Desert, most people who come to it will already be aware of its central premise though the movie treats that as a "reveal". Happily the film works either way. Crossing the border can also change how a movie feels. The initial protagonist, Daniel (Antonio Saboia) is viewed sympathetically but his offscreen history (police brutality) is likely to spark different reactions from country to country, depending on societal views on policing and masculinity.  In the minimalist but never simple story, a lonely cop spontaneously drives several hours to finally meet the woman he's been romancing online. She abruptly ghosts him after an implicit request for reciprocal nudes and we glean, quite a long time before he does, that he's fallen for a queer person. 

We had the pleasure of talking to the director Aly Muritiba about the film, the careful casting of his second lead, and Brazil's contentious history of Oscar selections...

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Best International Film: Brazil's "Private Desert", Iceland's "Lamb" and more...

Since I last piped up on the Best International Feature Film race at the upcoming Oscars, Italy released their finalist lists, and the following five countries have also picked their ponies:

BRAZIL
They're sending Aly Muritiba's Private Desert about a suspended policeman who is looking to meet his internet love. She's vanished but he finds a man who offers to connect the would-be lovers. It premiered at Venice...

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