Carlos Saldanha’s Disney Comedy Series “How to be a Carioca” to Screen at Iberseries & Platino Industria

Carlos Saldanha’s latest project will get its first screening next month.

The 58-year-old Brazilian animator, director, producer and voice actor’s Disney comedy series How to be a Carioca will screen for the first time at the Iberseries & Platino Industria event in October.

Carlos SaldanhaThe first episode of the Star Original Productions-badged comedy will play at the fest, which is held in Madrid.

Saldanha and co-creator Joana Mariani will feature on a panel for the show alongside Leonardo Aranguibel, VP of Production, Head of Production Operations and Strategy, The Walt Disney Company Latin America.

The Portuguese-language comedy series follows an American writer who has to learn the quirks of Rio de Janeiro’s people after moving to the city. It stars the likes of Seu Jorge and Douglas Silva, and marks one of the first live-action Brazilian series the Oscar-nominated Saldanha has made in some years. He’s known for directing two of the Ice Age and Rio movies and picked up an Academy Award nom for 2017’s Ferdinand.

The show is set to launch on Star+ in Latin America and Disney+’s streaming services, including Disney+ worldwide.

How to be a Carioca follows an American writer who has to learn the quirks of Rio de Janeiro’s people after moving to the Brazilian city. Saldanha is creating the show with Mariani and Diogo Dhal with scriptwriters Rodrigo Nogueira, Sabrina Rosa and Felipe Scholl. Moovie is producing.

The series will screen as part of the Chapter One strand of Iberseries.

Fernando Meirelles Launching Slate of Environmental Films with UK Production Firm ‘Make Waves’

Fernando Meirelles is shining a spotlight on the environment…

The 65-year-old Brazilian Oscar-nominated film director, producer and screenwriter, best known for hit films The Two PopesThe Constant Gardener and City Of God, is launching a slate of environmental films in association with UK production firm Make Waves.

Fernando Meirelles

Four of the projects on the $20M documentary slate have already attracted talent and funding.

Meirelles himself will direct Soil, a feature-length documentary about the little-known microscopic world beneath our feet, which will reveal the revolutionary solutions that could help avert a planetary food crisis.

The “flagship” film on the slate is Blue Carbon, which will be directed by BAFTA and Emmy-winning filmmaker Nicolas Brown (Serengeti Rules). With 2021 Grammy-nominated DJ Jayda G as its protagonist, the feature will spotlight a movement to grow an ocean forest across the planet to help combat climate change. The film will weave together stories of ocean activists, scientists and frontline communities, and will feature music from Brazilian samba artist Seu Jorge (The Life Aquatic). The film’s development is being funded by HHMI/Tangled Bank Studios (The Serengeti Rules).

The Shackleton Solution will look at what iconic explorer Ernest Shackleton can teach the world about how to save a continent facing a catastrophe. It will draw parallels between Shackleton’s epic Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917) and a planet on the cusp of imminent environmental emergency.

Also on the slate is Law Of The Land from filmmaker Coral Brown, which asks the fundamental question: what if nature, like corporations, had the same legal rights as you and me? The feature doc will follow grassroots lawyers and Indigenous communities as they take the battle for the Rights of Nature movement into the courtrooms and onto the streets.

The slate has been co-created by Meirelles, former UN environment diplomat/producer Alexander and Irish author Don Mullan, and BAFTA-winning producer Sarah Macdonald and former Director of BBC World News Sian Kevill, all of whom will serve as EPs on the slate. Two additional films are due to be added to the lineup later in 2021.

Meirelles, a passionate environmentalist, most recently teamed up with Make Waves, Asen and Mullan on green documentary The Great Green Wall, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival two years ago.

“There is nothing more urgent than the climate crisis,” says Meirelles. “Information is what can turn the tide. Our goal is to make films that not only inform, but that enchant and engage. For my grandchildren and the grandchildren of others, that will be the theme of my work until the day I die.”

Former BBC journalist Macdonald heads investigations and documentary specialist Make Waves with former BBC journalist and executive Kevill.

Marcelo D2 Releases Anti-Violence Album and Short Film

Marcelo D2 is speaking out about the violence in Rio de Janeiro through new music…

The 50-year-old Brazilian rapper has released a new album accompanied by a short film. Amar é para os Fortes premiered Friday exclusively on Apple Music.

Marcelo D2

The album was produced by Mario Caldaro Jr. of Beastie Boys fame, while the film was produced, written and directed by Marcelo D2.

The project is described as “a musical chronicle of Rio de Janeiro’s reality: violence, drugs, friends and enemies, family, art, hope, love.”

The nearly-wordless half-hour movie features eight of the record’s ten tracks. Stephan Peixoto, Marcelo D2’s son, plays Sinistro, who discovers a world away from the gangs and guns in the favela when he finds work in an art gallery and is embraced by artists and musicians.

Described by the artist as “an album to watch,” the story, based on his own, is a stylish street opera that illustrates arts role in social change.

The film includes the information that there were 300,000 violent deaths in Brazil in the last ten years, and 71 percent of the victims were young and black.

Gilberto Gil and Seu Jorge are among the real-life Brazilian artists who make cameos in the film, which counted on Nike, Pernod Ricard and Casio as sponsors.

Click here for the video on Apple Music.

 

Delayed “Pelé” Biopic Headed to Theaters After the World Cup

He’s considered one of the best soccer players of all time… And, now Pelé’s life story is heading to the big screen.

Pelé, the biopic about the legendary 73-year-old Brazilian soccer star, is scheduled to hit theaters sometime in 2014.

Pelé

But sadly, it doesn’t look like the film will be ready for delivery before this summer’s soccer World Cup, as previously planned, due to a lengthy spell in post-production and reshoots for the project.

Written and directed by Michael Zimbalist and Jeff Zimbalist, the film stars newcomers Leonardo Lima Carvalho and Kevin de Paula, who will both portray the soccer star at different stages in his young life.

Pelé

The film is described as an origins story, chronicling Pele’s rise from the slums of Sao Paulo to become the people’s hero when, as a 17-year-old, he led Brazil to its first World Cup victory, in 1958.

Carvalho will play Pelé between ages 10 through 13 and De Paula will play him between the ages of 13 and 17.

Vincent D’Onofrio, Rodrigo Santoro, Diego Boneta, Colm Meaney and Seu Jorge also star.

Also in the cast are Brazilian actors Marianna Nunes, Milton Goncales, Rafael Henrique, Marcus Vinicius, Julio Levy, Thelmo Fernandes, Felipe Simas, Charles Myara, Jerome Franz and Roger Haag.

Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Seine PicturesIvan Orlic are producing Pele with Kim Roth and Colin Wilson executive producing.

Correy Perform’s Coca-Cola’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Anthem

It appears that the world is David Correy’s…

The 26-year-old Brazilian American singer and former The X Factor contestant has been chosen to record Coca-Cola‘s global 2014 FIFA World Cup anthem.

David Correy

Correy performs the song, entitled “The World is Ours,” with the Brazilian percussion troupe Monobloco.

The soccer-themed track features a pumped up pop melody tethered by the Brazilian roots rhythms commonly identified with carnival, as well as inspirational lyrics readymade for stadium sing-alongs.

“The World is Ours” will be the theme of the brand’s international “World’s Cup” campaign. The tournament year anthem was written by song-writing team Rock Mafia (Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez) and produced by Brazilian-born Mario Caldato Jr., who has worked with the Beastie Boys, Jack Johnson, and Brazilian artists including Seu Jorge and Bebel Gilberto.

“We always try to bring to light our campaign ideas through music and in 2014 we’re talking about the World Cup and bringing the world together,” says Joe Belliotti, Director of Global Entertainment Marketing at Coca-Cola. “That is what the song was meant to do from a lyric perspective. From a music perspective, we wanted the music to stay very authentic to Brazil, but in an original way that would resonate with an audience internationally…we’re taking that rhythm of Brazil and pairing it with just a great mainstream song.”

Correy, best known as a 2012 The X Factor finalist who re-connected with his Brazilian birth mother after appearing on the reality show, will debut the song live tomorrow on Corcovado Mountain above Rio de Janeiro.

“It’s such a feel-good song,” says Correy, whose tattoos include one on his back of a Brazilian flag covering a hand making the metal horns sign, which is spotlighted on the single’s cover photo. He opens the 2:38 minute track with a call to “kick it to the world.”

“I think with the rhythms, the song, the message, it’s going to touch a lot of people,” he says.

Tomorrow’s performance of the song will mark the opening of the Coke-sponsored World Cup Trophy tour, which takes the  tournament trophy to 88 countries.

Correy and Monobloco will perform the anthem at select stops on the tour, where fans’ voices will be recorded and added to future mixes. Artists from different countries will also collaborate with Correy on recordings of the song in different languages. A Portuguese version called “Tu Mundo,” with vocals by Brazilian singer Gaby Amarantos was released in June in Brazil. That song did not include Correy’s vocals.

“The World is Ours” will be immediately available for streaming on Coca-Cola partner Spotify, and will later be sold widely as a download at digital outlets. The song will be featured in Coke’s World Cup-themed TV ads and mobile campaigns.

“The World of Ours” is the first major anthem to be unveiled for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, which opens in Sao Paulo on June 12. FIFA has yet to announce the official World Cup anthem.