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Shot between his directing Alicia Vikander in “Firebrand” and Kristen Stewart in “Rosebushpruning,” “Motel Destino,” which bows in Cannes Competition on May 22, can be seen as a return by Brazil’s now most international director to his Brazilian roots.

This axis between international and local, plays out in “Motel Destino” and Aïnouz insists, in now his whole career.

An erotic thriller, “Motel Destino” turns on Dayana, the young wife of a roadside sex hotel owner who seduces on-the-run minor mobster Heraldo for great sex. But she soon conceives the idea of his helping her to kill her terrifyingly abusive older husband.

“I was really interested in a kind of Brazilian interpretation of melodrama and noir cinema, how to take genre, which begins in Hollywood, and appropriate it make it local and ours,” Aïnouz tells Variety.

“Motel Destino” is melodrama “in the sense these characters that are trying to survive, by any means.

Josephine Chaplin, an actress and the sixth of 11 children fathered by screen legend Charlie Chaplin, died July 13 in Paris, her family announced. She was 74.

Chaplin starred with Laurence Harvey in Menahem Golan’s Escape to the Sun (1972), about a group of people attempting to leave the Soviet Union to escape antisemitism and political repression.

She also appeared with Vittorio De Sica and Maurice Ronet in L’odeur des fauves (1972), with Liv Ullmann and Kiefer Sutherland in Daniel Petrie’s The Bay Boy (1984), and with Klaus Kinski in a German-language version of Jack the Ripper (1976).

In 1988, she portrayed Hadley Richardson, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway, in a miniseries that starred Stacy Keach.

Josephine Chaplin with Laurence Harvey in 1972’s Escape to the Sun.

Josephine Hannah Chaplin was born in Santa Monica on March 28, 1949, the third of eight children of Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill, the British actress...

Features include Albania’s entry to the Oscars.

Estonia’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (November 11-27) has announced the first seven films in its main competition strand, including Albania’s entry for the Oscars.

Gentian Koçi’s A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On was announced as Albania’s submission for the best international feature Oscar last week and will receive its world premiere at the festival.

Inspired by a true story, it follows identical deaf-mute twin brothers in their 40s who must contend with progressively losing their sense of sight. It marks Koçi’s second feature after Daybreak,...

Gullane Entretenimento presented film as work in progress at Ventana Sur in 2020.

Cinema Management Group (Cmg) has acquired international sales to Brazilian director Sergio Machado’s Island City in the run-up to the Cannes market in May.

The film was presented by Gullane Entretenimento as a work in progress at Ventana Sur in 2020, since when Cmg has tracked the project through production and post-production.

Based on an original story by contemporary Brazilian writer Milton Hatoum, Island City tells of three brothers who end up living under the same roof with the middle brother’s beautiful new wife

Anaira (Sophie Charlotte) is sensual,...

“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...

“Queen of the South” actor Alice Braga is set to star in the upcoming Netflix movie “Ivy.”

The story centers on a mother, who is recovering from a brutal accident and moves into a prototype smart home. As she begins to get settled, she finds out that the house’s groundbreaking AI technology is quickly developing real human emotions.

“Night Raiders” filmmaker Danis Goulet is directing the thriller, with a script from Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg (“Distant”).

Netflix has not announced the film’s release date.

Producers on “Ivy” include Tripp Vinson for Vinson Films and Daniel Bekerman for Scythia Films. In addition to penning the screenplay, Cohen and Halberg will serve as executive producers. Christopher Yurkovich, Alex Ordanis and Tara Farney are also executive producing.

Braga began her career in Brazilian films, including “City of God,” “Lower City” and “Only God Knows,” before landing a breakout role opposite...

Claudia Huaiquimilla’s “My Brothers Dream Awake,” Thais Fujinaga’s “The Joy of Things” and Flavia Neves’ “Fogareu” will screen in Primer Corte or Copia Final, the two art film pix-in-post showcases at this year’s Ventana Sur, the biggest movie market in Latin America.

The Cannes Festival and Film Market’s biggest initiative outside France, Ventana Sur will run from Nov.30 to Dec. 4.

“My Brothers Dream Awake” weighs in as another call to resistance from Mapuche writer-director Huaiquimilla whose debut, “Bad Influence” (“Mala Junta”) won the audience award at the Toulouse Latin American Cinema Festival.

“The Joy of Things” marks the feature debut of Brazil’s Fujinaga, a co-writer on Netflix’s “Omniscient,” from Boutique Filmes, as well as on a new season of HBO Latin America’s “Joint Venture,” co-directed by “City of God’s” Fernando Meirelles.

Neves’ debut, “Fogaréu” forms part of a burgeoning line in new...

Cannes — In yet another – and significant – Latin America distribution deal for the now highly active Ott giant, Amazon Prime Video has acquired Brazilian and pan-Spanish-speaking Latin American Svod rights to Turner Latin America’s highly anticipated “Freitas Brothers.”

The announcement was made late Tuesday by Turner Latin America at Cannes Mipcom TV and Ott trade fair.

Underscoring the alliance between WarnerMedia’s Turner Latin America, the No. 1 pay TV powerhouse in Latin America, with the cream of Brazil’s film world, the boxing bioseries was created by Sergio Machado (”Lower City”) and Walter Salles (“The Motorcycle Diaries”), directed by Machado and Aly Muritiba (“Rust”) and supervised by Salles.

Top Brazilian production house Gullane produces with Salles’ label VideoFilmes.

“Freitas Brothers” will bow on Tla’s pay TV channel Space Brazil and, two hours later, be made available on Amazon Prime Video in the same country. Three months after the end...

Produced by Fabiano Gullane, Walter Salles and Globo Filmes, and unfolding to the strains of Bossa Nova, “Noah’s Ark” has closed brisk pre-sales for Edward Noeltner’s Cinema Management Group (Cmg) off a Berlin Festival launch.

Those deals reflect the status of “Noah’s Ark” – directed by Sérgio Machado (“Lower City”) and with songs and lyrics by Bossa Nova legend Vinicius de Moraes – as both one of the biggest-budgeted of current Brazilian movies and a flagship of its vibrant animation sector, which will receive a tribute at June’s Annecy Festival.

Made in what is now the long run-up to Cannes, deals also underscore Cmg’s making full use of Bordeaux’s Cartoon Movie and Hong Kong’s FilmArt to not only pre-sell “Noah’s Ark” in small-to-midsize territories – a traditional strategy – but position “Noah’s Ark” for the Cannes Festival. That tactic is likely to be copied by...

Thinking about frequent conversations on this blog over the years about black men and sexuality – and lack thereof – on film and TV screens, I thought it would be interesting to revisit this topic; this time with a non-American film - Sergio Machado’s 2005 Brazilian film noir "Lower City" ("Cidade Baixa"). Emotions and passions run high in Machado’s erotic drama. One can compare "Lower City" to the acclaimed film "City of God" – at least, culturally (impassioned, complex characters of the lower working class), and its uncompromising spirit. Some Brazilians may consider this film as part of the country’s “slumsploitation” boom after the success of God, although Lower City’s violence is...

On the heels of Spike Lee’s recent Kickstarter campaign, in which he claims his next film will have a bunch of “buck-naked black people,” and after frequent conversations about black men and sexuality –and lack thereof – on screen, I thought it would be interesting to revisit this topic; this time with a non-American film - Sergio Machado’s 2005 Brazilian film noir Lower City (Cidade Baixa). Emotions and passions run high in Machado’s erotic drama. One can compare Lower City to the acclaimed film City of God – at least, culturally (impassioned, complex characters of the lower working class), and its uncompromising spirit. Some Brazilians may consider this film as part of the country’s...

Shoreline is focused on discovering the best scripts from around the world. Their goal is to get these scripts into the hands of the producers and production companies who have the ability to get them made. They have the highest calibre and most respected industry judges of any screenwriting competitions out there and their judges are Oscar, Cannes & BAFTA winners and nominees.

30th June is the last day to enter your screenplay.

Feature Script – Late Deadline: 2nd June – 30th June 2013 £35 ($56 approx)

Short Script – Late Deadline: 2nd June – 30th June 2013 £25 ($40 approx)

Last years winner sold his screenplay to Christopher Figg, producer of: Hellraiser, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Dog Soldiers & many more.

There’s also over £9000 ($14000 approx.) in prizes to be won!

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To Enter Your Feature: http://www.shorelinescripts.com/shoreline-scripts-screenwriting-competition/feature/

To Enter Your Short: http://www.shorelinescripts.com/shoreline-scripts-short-script-submission/

Judges:

Oscar Nominated Producer, Stephen Woolley – The Crying Game,...

Shoreline Scripts, in partnership with Sound on Sight, is giving emerging independent writers and talented, new voices a chance to have their scripts put into the hands of leading producers and production companies who have the ability to get them made. This is your chance to have your screenplay read by the most respected industry judges of any screenwriting competition across the globe.

Here are the details. Best of luck to our readers who enter.

Shoreline Scripts Screenwriting Competition is offering 1 Free Feature script submission to it’s 2013 competition. www.shorelinescripts.com - How to enter: -

All you have to do is email [email protected] with your name and ‘Sound on Sight’ in the subject heading. One reader will be chosen at random and notified that they have won by next Wednesday, January 16th.

Shoreline Scripts Screenwriting Competition is focused on discovering the best scripts from around the world.

If Sanjay Leela Bhansali can set Shakespeare's love tragedy Romeo & Juliet in Gujarat, why can't Shekhar Kapoor situate the same timeless material in futuristic Mumbai? And shoot it in Singapore?

That's exactly what Shekhar will do in Paani. The film is a tale of star-crossed lovers from incompatible social stratas where the girl would be upper-class elite of Caucasian pedigree while the boy would be tanned bare-bodied desi ruffian with the manners of a street urchin and the lingo of a fish seller.

Shekhar is currently in Singapore hunting for locations.

Says our source, "Paani is a cross-cultural rich-poor Romeo & Juliet love story set in futuristic Mumbai when water will be the biggest asset and the most expensive commodity in the world. Wealth would be determined by how much of the city's water supply is controlled by the powers-that-be. In the film, Mumbai would be divided into the Upper City and Lower City.

Plans of casting Hrithik Roshan in his next film Paani have now been aborted. One understands that Shekhar Kapoor is all set to start Paani, his dream project which he has been nurturing for 4 years, with newcomers in the cast. According to sources, the futuristic love story set in am acutely water-challenged Mumbai would feature an Indian male debutant and a new Caucasian female face. The love saga is set in two mutually exclusive areas of an imaginary Mumbai. The Upper City and the Lower City. The Upper City housing the super-rich elite would be shown to have cornered most of the city's scarce water supply. Paani is essentially a rich-poor love story where the economically-challenged hero from the water-starved Lower City sneaks into the Upper City to romance the rich haughty neo-princess. The film, patterned on the lines of Robert Wise's West Side Story, will finally go on the floors this summer.

Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty, On the Road poster "Desirous of everything at the same time," is how Dean Moriarty is described in the latest character poster for Walter Salles' film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. That statement can be read in all sorts of ways — at the same time. Tron: Legacy / Inside Llewyn Davis' Garrett Hedlund plays the sensual, live-for-the-moment Moriarty, inspired by Kerouac's intimate buddy Neal Cassady. Married three times — at one point to two different women — Cassady had a two-decade, off-and-on relationship with Allen Ginsberg. (Back in the '50s, Kerouac wanted Marlon Brando as Dean; the sexually conflicted Kerouac was to have played On the Road's other male lead, Sal Paradise, a version of himself.) In addition to Garrett Hedlund, On the Road features the following performers: Woman in Love / Brighton Rock's Sam Riley as Sal, The Twilight Saga:...

Alice Braga, On the Road movie poster Alice Braga plays Terry, described as the "cutest little Mexican girl," in Walter Salles' film version of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. We'll see how the Portuguese-speaking Brazilian Braga will do as a Spanish-speaking Mexican farm laborer (Bea Franco in real life). Among Braga's screen credits are Predators, Repo Men, Cidade Baixa / Lower City, I Am Legend, and Cidade de Deus / City of God. She's also one of the featured players, alongside Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, William Fichtner, Diego Luna, and others, in Neill Blomkamp's Elysium. In addition to Alice Braga, On the Road features: Country Strong / Georgia Rule Garrett Hedlund, Byzantium / Control's Sam Riley, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 / Snow White and the Huntsman / Adventureland's Kristen Stewart, Waiting for Forever / Being Julia's Tom Sturridge, Ideal / Off the Hook's Danny Morgan, Mad Men / Get Him to the Greek's Elisabeth Moss,...

Craig here (from Dark Eye Socket) with Take Three. Today: Alice Braga

Take One: Blindness (2008)

As per the José Saramago novel that Blindness is based on, no characters have names in the film, thus Braga is known only as ‘Woman with Dark Glasses’. (Julianne Moore is ‘Doctor’s Wife’; Danny Glover is ‘Man with Black Eye Patch’ etc.) She’s one of a gathering of randomly afflicted people who succumb to a mysterious blindness epidemic. All the cast, however big or small the role, collaboratively convey the exact amount of conviction in their roles. They remain true to their characters’ physical, psychological and emotional positions each step of the way. There’s a defiant ‘all in it together’ aspect, in which each actor instinctively plays off one another in rewarding ways, not least when it comes to Braga.

Two prominent scenes stand out. Both speak volumes about who WwDG is...

Anthony Hopkins' exorcism film, The Rite, opens this weekend, making it time to revisit the sexy Alice Braga. I originally introduced Braga to our Scream Queens / Hot Babes section for our Women of Predator (link Nsfw) series. Braga has appeared nude in the films Lower City, Only God Knows and Blindness. She also played "Anna" in Will Smith's I Am Legend and starred in 2010's Repo Men. The Rite opens in theaters on January 28, 2011.

September 27, 2010: Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur’s ambitious project Paani is expected to be shot in China. This speculation has arisen from the frequent visit of the director to that country in this year. Paani is a futuristic epic by Shekhar.

The plot of the movie requires Shekhar and his art director to create a futuristic Mumbai, where two sharply demarcated sections of prople will live. One group will be called ‘The Upper City’, which consists of elite people with abundant water supply and the other will be ‘The Lower City’ that will consist of the poor sections.

A boy.

While researching our final Women of Predator Naked, and actress Alice Braga, I was surprised to learn how many of hers films I have actually seen; City of God, Lower City, I Am Legend, Redbelt and of course I'm going to see Predators this weekend. I was equally as surprised about how many times she has appeared nude in these films. Braga has at least seven nude scenes in Lower City and Only God Knows. She also has a brief sex/nude scene in a film called Blindness.

• Continuing on yesterday’s cue, Indie Queens and Foreign Femme Fatales top 10 list demonstrates an appreciation for performance, grace, style, facial symmetry and once again that je ne sais quoi factor. This year’s compilation is a mix of 2006’s old school – which’ve once again proved their weight in gold and we also witnessed a new generation of leading ladies make their marks. The sum is a healthy representation of world inhabitants and some sizzling performances. 10. Abbie Cornish2006: Unless you happen to live in the Aussieland sunbelt, prior to 04’ no one heard of the actress. Cornish’s international claim to fame (Somersault) was finally released stateside in 06’ and folks were whip lashed by her with additional stints in A Good Year and junkie-friendly vehicle of Candy.2007: The next Watts/Kidman to come out of Australia will next appear in The Golden Age and Kimberly Peirce's

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• Quick Links > Sólo Dios Sabe > Diego Luna > Alice Braga > Palm Pictures > ioncinema’s Alice Braga Interview Latin Cinema is a perhaps the new found fountain of profitability for indie distributors and in another no-brainer move the folks at Palm Pictures are looking towards “latin” along with “beauty” and “sexy” to bolster their future line-up. With Alicia Braga and Y tu mama tambien star Diego Luna toplining the Mexican-Brazilian co production – the roll-out dates will be the passion month’s of spring. First opening in New York and Los Angeles, this should open up in another top 10 cities. First unveiled at this year’s Sundance, Sólo Dios Sabe is about an enamored young man who pursues a girl across continents in director Carlos Bolado's love story. During a trip to Tijuana, Brazilian art student Dolores (Alice Braga) accepts a ride with Mexican journalist

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• A new wave of movies is once again reshaping the so called idea of ‘avant-garde independent cinema’. No, we are not going backwards in time, living again in the sixties, when the feeling of ‘new’ and ‘fresh’ and ‘alive’ was packaged by French innovators like Godard or Truffaut, who conquered audiences through small movies carrying big hearts and souls. The sixties are long gone and the nouvelle vague of our days doesn’t speak French anymore and nor does it speak English. The Sensuality Of The Brazilian New Wave: Alice Braga Fortunately enough, there are other countries talking the ‘independent’ language. The whole South American continent, with its puzzle of countries and cultures, is giving birth to movies that matter, and Brazil is one of the new movie nations that speaks loud and clear. The latest example is Lower City, the second feature film of Sergio Machado,

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• Ahhhhh lazy days ahead. Picnics, BBQ’s and fun days at the beach (see pic above). Summer is also the time when Hollywood campaigns for folks to make there way to air-conditioned multiplexes. I champion such activity but I also say don’t forget the other films – the arty sort. Using our regular voting system – I asked the cream of crop folks at ioncinema to name me their most anticipated picks to beat the heat….you’ll find a bit of everything in the choices of Marcello Paolillo, Justin Ambrosino, Samuel Hilton, Jameson Kowalczyk and me. Yesterday (11-20) we saw a fair number of studio picks - today we see les of them. Scroll down to see what we feel are the 10 best reasons to go to the theatres this summer. 10.The Ordeal (Calvaire) Release date: August Tba NY and/or L.A. release Distributor: Palm Pictures

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