Motovun Film Festival’s successor showcases a fascinating program of seven Brazilian hits in Gorski Kotar

An exciting country, not only for its natural beauty, football and music, but thanks to its vast and important filmmaking as well. This is Brazil, the partner country of this year’s Cinehill festival, which takes place from July 24 to 28 in Gorski Kotar. Cinehill thus continues the tradition of its predecessor Motovun Film Festival in showcasing national cinemas of countries with which we are less acquainted.

The beginnings of Brazilian cinema go back to 1896, when the first film screening was held in Rio de Janeiro. Its rich tradition extends from musical comedies to crime films and original filmmaking that often blurs the line between experimental and popular. In the 60s and 70s, Cinema Novo, Brazil’s politically oriented version of the New Wave, attracted great critical interest. In recent years, films from this country have attracted attention given their numbers and success at international festivals. This year, Cinehill is preparing a hand-picked selection of these cinema hits.

One of these is Betânia, a hit from this year’s Berlinale, which will appear in Cinehill’s main program. In his feature debut, director Marcelo Botta tackles ecological and socio-cultural problems in villages whose desert oases are threatened by rampant tourism and encroaching sand. It does so in the story of an elderly woman struggling to preserve her identity after leaving behind a simple, agrarian lifestyle without electricity and moving to a place where tradition and modernity collide.

Bacurau is another treat, crowned with the Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. In his entertaining third feature, renowned director Kleber Mendonça Filho delivers a political allegory mixing western, thriller and science fiction. The story centres on the township of Bacurau after it suddenly disappears from satellite maps, as its villagers prepare for a brutal fight for survival against an unknown enemy.

The Second Mother (2015), directed by Anna Muylaert, won more than 20 awards worldwide, including the Special Jury Prize at Sundance and the Audience Award at the Berlinale. It is a humorous drama about a conscientious housekeeper whose ambitious daughter disturbs the established balance and fixed class relations of the household when she comes for a visit.

The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão (2019), director Karim Aïnouz’s most acclaimed feature, received a handful of awards, including the Un Certain Regard Award in Cannes. At the heart of the story are two sisters who fight against patriarchal repression and intolerance, during the 1950s in Rio de Janeiro.

Young viewers will be enchanted and adults will be impressed by The Boy and the World (2015), nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. In this visually exciting and playful animation, director Alê Abreu addresses the problems of the modern world through children’s eyes, in a story about a boy who leaves his village in his father’s absence and discovers a fantastic world ruled by animal-machines and unusual creatures.

“Until now, we have rarely left Europe, and this is our first foray into Latin America. As we will be showing the Brazilian program in a circus tent, the cinema we have named Circus Fellini, we have decided to start and end this program of seven films with titles dealing with clowns and traveling artists. It’s not by chance, since this art for has a long and valued tradition in Brazil”, said Cinehill Director Igor Mirković.

The program has been realised in cooperation with the Embassy of the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Guimarães Rosa Institute. This year’s Cinehill is held at the Petehovac mountain resort above Delnice and in the surrounding towns, with the support of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, the Tourist Boards of Kvarner and Gorski Kotar, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, and the City of Delnice.

The most affordable ticket bundles are already available in presale and can be purchased online, via the following link: https://core-event.co/events/cinehill-film-festival-2024-4efa/