Pandora Filmes: Celebs Rumors

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LOCARNO — Brazil’s Pandora Filmes, one of the country’s premier independent distributors, has secured Brazilian distribution rights to “Tomorrow’s Rain”(“Amanhã Já Não Chove”), a Portuguese portrait of bourgeois malaise which was brought onto the market last weekend at the Locarno Festival’s Match Me! Pandora Filmes’ distribution slate takes in “Parasite,” “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” and “R.M.N.” Set up at Lisbon’s Omaja and Brazil’s Capuri, which cut the deal with Pandora, “Tomorrow Rain” marks the fiction feature debut of Portuguese director-producer Bernardo Lopes at Omaja, a 2021 Portuguese Film Academy Sophia Award winner for his short “Moço.” Produced by Lopes and Eduardo Rezende, “Tomorrow’s Rain”will star José Pimentão, who played Ramiro in Netflix’s “1899,” and João Nunes Monteiro, a Portuguese Film Academy Sophia Award winner best actor award winner for “Mosquito” in 2021 and best supporting actor winner last year for “The Tsugua Diaries.” Written by Lopes and Francisco Mira Godinho, who together co-wrote and co-directed TV mini-series “Lugar 54,” an Omaja production for Portuguese public broadcaster RTP, “Tomorrow’s Rain” depicts one summer day in the life of a crumbling family at the peak of the Portuguese financial crisis of 2012. “‘Tomorrow’s Rain’ is a feature fiction family drama that makes an urgent portrayal of a marginalized southern Portuguese region during the 2012 financial crisis, from the POV of a decadent bourgeois family that suffers from a tumor in the form of a secret, consuming them until the day of their inevitable end,” Lopes told Variety.

Holly Jones Paris-based Urban Sales has swooped on international sales rights to Brazilian writer-director Carolina Markowicz’s awaited debut feature film “Charcoal” (“Carvão”), which is set for its world premiere at at Toronto’s prestigious Platform showcase before heading to San Sebastian for a Europe bow as part of its just-revealed Horizontes Latinos lineup.Urban Sales has also shared with Variety a first look still from the film.Distribution in Brazil is handled by Pandora Filmes, founded by André Sturm, which launched the country’s first classic film streaming platform Belas Artes in 2019, bringing big-name, cult, and regional classics to audiences nationwide.Markowicz has written and directed six short films that have been selected by 400 festivals including Locarno, SXSW, Toronto and AFI.  Her short film,“The Orphan,” a gritty tale about a young queer boy who tries to navigate his most recent adoption after being placed with a well-off conservative family, premiered at Directors’ Fortnight and won the Queer Palm at Cannes in 2018. “We’ve always felt close to Brazilian cinema, working with filmmakers such as Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas, Sandra Kogut, Esmir Filho,” said Louise Ronzet, Urban Sales’ head of sales.She added: “We found Carolina Markowicz’s debut to be simply mind-blowing.