Figa Films Acquires International Sales Rights to Clara Linhart’s “Os Sapos”

Clara Linhart’s latest project is hoping to get global distribution…

Figa Films has acquired the international sales rights to Os Sapos (Frogs) by the Brazilian filmmaker.

Clara Linhart

Linhart’s previous film Domingo, co-directed with Fellipe Barbosa, premiered at the 75th Venice Film Festival in Venice Days.

The Brazilian production centers on a woman, in her late thirties, invited to an old friends’ get together at a country house. She arrives to find there is no get together and is left instead to spend her weekend with two couples in partial crisis.

In her statement about the film director Linhart says, ‘I want the spectators to recognize themselves in these characters or in the situations they experience. I want people to both laugh and cringe because they can relate. I want to use the camera as a microscope capable of visualizing looks, gestures, and whispers that denote desires, fears, and insecurities.”

Paula is played by Thalita Carauta, who put in an award-winning turn in Narcos director Fernando Coimbra’s searing feature debut A Wolf At The Door, a Horizontes Latinos winner at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

Her character carries the audience with her as what could have been an idyllic getaway thrusts demands on her to be an agony aunt, diffuse tension, thwart advances of friendship and more.

‘I am not interested in portraying women as victims and men as monsters, but in identifying complementary neuroses that are common to so many couples,’ says Linhardt.

These goals from the director are complimented by a screenplay from Renata Mizrahi.

FiGa and Linhardt will no doubt be encouraged by jury and audience wins at the pix-in-post strand of the 26th Festival Audiovisual do Mercosul. It’s a festival that has brought success previously, with her first feature, La Manuela, winning the best doc prize there in 2017.

Sandro Fiorin, co-founder of FiGa Films told Variety: “We have admired Clara’s work for a long time and it’s a privilege to collaborate with her and the team in Brazil. Her film, though comedic at moments, feels like a pressure chamber in an idyllic paradise – leaving us totally breathless.”

Produced by Linhardt and Fellipe Barbosa’s label Gamarosa Filmes, Os Sapos received support from Brazil’s main federal government production fund, the Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual. Additional co-production credits go to Canal Brasil and Telecine.

FiGa Films Acquires Worldwide Sales Rights to Agustin Banchero’s “Las Vacaciones de Hilda”

Agustin Banchero’s preparing for a global vacation

FiGa Films, a leading Miami-based international sales and distribution company, has picked up worldwide sales rights to the 32-year-old Uruguayan filmmaker’s debut feature Las Vacaciones de Hilda.

Agustin Banchero

“The film was part of this year’s San Sebastian International Film Festival’s [work in progress section] Cine en Construcciónand blew us away,” said FiGa Films’ Sandro Fiorin, adding: “It is the most mature first feature I’ve seen in years.”

Produced by Virginia Boglioloand Juan Alvarez Nemeof auteur-driven Uruguayan shingle, TarkiofilmLas Vacaciones de Hilda centers on the titular character whose self-imposed solitary life is upended when she hears that her son, whom she hasn’t seen in years, is coming to visit. The abrupt cancellation of his visit triggers memories of a past summer.

“Her memories of a particular summer spark an emotional pivot for the character,” said Banchero whose inspiration for his film primarily stemmed from his need to understand people close to him. Through its five years of development, it evolved into a nuanced exploration of memory, on understanding how the past affects the present. “It became more of a philosophical search,” he said. As it had to be shot in the winter and summer, he filmed it in two parts with a year’s break in between. “That break was fortuitous as it allowed me to reflect on what I had filmed and see it from a fresh perspective,” he mused.

Born in Montevideo, Banchero earned a filmmaking degree from the Film School of Uruguayafter which he directed a series of short films, including De Las Casas Blancas, which screened at the LLAFin London and the World Cinema Festin Amsterdam, among others. Other shorts followed, led by Las Perdidas, which played the Malba Festivalin Buenos Aires.

Miami Film Festival’s Encuentros Sidebar to Include Schnicer & Guardiola’s “Tigre”

Silvina Schnicer and Ulises Porra Guardiola will have a special encuentro in Miami…

The Miami Film Festival has unveiled its industry sidebar Encuentros, a selection of Latin American feature films produced partially or entirely by Ibero-American-based production companies currently in the postproduction stage, with the Argentine filmmakers’ latest project making the list.

Tigre

In addition to Schnicher and Guardiola’s Tigre, the program also selected Eugenia (Bolivia), directed by Martin BoulocqCamocim (Brazil), directed by Quentin Delaroche; and Los debiles (Mexico), directed by Raul Rico and Eduardo Giralt Brun.

The Encuentros sidebar was curated by Sandro Fiorin, from LatAm-specialty sales agent FiGa Films,

The projects will be matched with industry professionals, and a jury will award a $10,000 cash prize in completion financing, courtesy of the Knight Foundation.

“None of them were seen anywhere before,” said Fiorin on this year’s selection. “All remarkable in their own way, they represent what is happening at this moment in Latin America. The freshness and attitude are palpable, though the similarities and politics are buried deep inside each story. A total reflection of our times here in the U.S. and elsewhere,” he added.

Last year, the Encuentros winner was The Candidate, directed by Uruguayan actor Daniel Hendler, and an international premiere at the Miami fest this year.

The Festival also announced this year’s Miami Encuentros jury, formed by Dana Keith (Miami Beach Film Society and Cinematheque), Molly O’Keefe (Tribeca Film Institute), and the program creator Diana Sanchez (Toronto International Film Festival).

Additional prizes to be awarded include a DCP Mastering Service package valued at $5,000 presented by Madrid’s Aracne Digital Services; and a poster design service valued at $5,000 presented by Buenos Aires’ Boogieman Media.

Presented by the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation, Miami Encuentros will be hosted March 6-7 at the Faena Hotel Miami Beach.

The 34th edition of the Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival will run March 3 –12.