Welcome to the Rio de Janeiro Int’l Film Festival 2008

Festival do Rio - 10th Rio International Film Festival
25 September - 9 October 2008
www.festivaldorio.com.br

The 10th Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival (Festival do Rio) will take place from Thursday 25 September through Thursday 9 October 2008.
 
Festival do Rio, which first took place in 1999 as a result of the merger of Brazil’s two largest film events, Rio Cine Festival (founded in 1984) and Mostra Banco Nacional do Cinema (founded in 1988), is Brazil and South America's largest film festival and industry event. It receives massive media attention throughout Brazil and much of South America.
 
Over 300,000 tickets were sold at the 2007 festival to the Brazilian public and overseas visitors. 380 films were screened from 60 countries at 30 venues around Rio de Janeiro, including on Copacabana Beach where the festival headquarters is located.
 
The 2007 festival witnessed nearly 100 Latin American premieres and 18 World Premieres, including that of the Brazilian film Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad), which won the "Golden Bear" at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival, and Mike Newell's Love in the Time of Cholera, which closed the festival. China was the honoured "Country in Focus" in 2007. In 2008 that honour will go to the United Kingdom.

Première Brasil: Best of Brazil

Première Brasil, which makes its festival home at the historic Odeon BR and Palácio cinemas in downtown Rio de Janeiro, is a showcase of contemporary Brazilian cinema. In 2007 Première Brasil screened 61 new Brazilian works that included 35 features and 26 shorts.
 
The films in Première Brasil are presented in three programmes: features, documentaries and shorts. It is the only competitive section of Festival do Rio with seven jury awards given out on the festival's closing night. Three highly prized audience awards are also given out for best Brazilian feature film, best documentary and best short film.
 
In 2007 the public voted Marcos Jorge's Estomago (A Gastronomic Story) as bestfilm and Beth Formaggini's Memoria Parta Uso Diario (Momories For Daily Use) as best documentary. The official jury chose Sandra Kogut's Mutum as best film and Roberto Mader's Condor as best documentary.

Industry Focus

While the main part of the festival is targeted towards the resident Brazilian public, Festival do Rio also has a very strong industry section, Rio Market, with seminars, Master Classes, one-to-one scheduled meetings, and networking events covering both film, home entertainment and television.
 
The festival is used by distributors, including the major studios, to launch films on the Brazilian market and has also been used successfully by international sales companies to place films not yet sold to Brazil in front of the main Brazilian buyers. The majority of Brazilian film and television industry executives attend Festival do Rio, as do buyers from throughout Latin America. The festival is arguably the best shop window in South America for independent productions.
 
Among the 140 industry guests, panellists and contributors in 2007 were Harvey Weinstein, Syd Field, Bille August, Fernando Solanas, Stephen Hopkins, Diego Luna, Michael Karagosian (founder of MKPE and a senior consultant on digital cinema technology and policies to the National Association of Theatre Owners), Scott Ross (founder and ex-CEO of Digital Domain), Ellen Pittleman (Senior VP Int'l Co-production & Worldwide Acquisitions, Paramount); Fernando Lagier (Director, Miravista - Disney Latin America); Genna Terranova (Acquisitions VP, Weinstein Co); Tony Safford (VP of 20th Century Fox), Redo Farah (VP, Warner Bros), Jorge Peregrino (Senior VP Distribution Latin America and the Caribbean, Paramount) Steven O’Dell (VP of Distribution, Sony Pictures Latin America), Mauricio Duran (Ma rketing Director, Universal Pictures), Steve Solot (Senior VP Latin America, MPA), Ann Rose (Supervising Producer of Original Programming, Sundance Channel), Ben Cotner (Director of Acquisitions & Co-production, Paramount Vantage), Robert Fyvolent (Head of Business, Newmarket Films), François da Silva (Artistic Advisor, Europacorp), Didar Dohmeri (Head of International Sales, Film Distribution), Alexandra Rossi (VP of European and Latin American Acquisitions/Production, New Line Cinema), and many others.

The Brazilian Audiovisual Market

Annually Brazil sells more than 93-million cinema tickets, 90% of which are for international productions. Around 350 films are released each year in Brazil of which around 75 will be Brazilian productions. Of the films released in 2006, 145 came from the main Hollywood studios while 119 were independent productions. Of the independent productions 57% were from North America and 34% from Europe.
 
The year’s top film in Brazil in 2007, Spider-Man 3, sold over six million tickets, while the top Brazilian film, Tropa de Elite, sold over two million tickets. There are now over 2,000 screens in Brazil, up from 1,500 in 2000.