Rio Film Festival Head on Bookending Fest With ‘La Bola Negra’ and ‘Club Kid,’ Expanding Premiére Brasil: ‘I Don’t Want a Festival By-the-Book’

If you ever attended a major film festival in the last three decades, chances are you came across an auburn-haired woman sporting fashionable big glasses and pristinely curated outfits from some of Brazil’s most exciting up-and-coming fashion designers. This is Ilda Santiago, the artistic director of Brazil’s leading Rio Film Festival. The programming veteran has spent decades working to narrow the bridges between her hometown and international cinephilia, working tirelessly to secure some of the year’s buzziest titles for her festival as competition grows fiercer and fiercer.

Santiago has excelled at the task this year. The upcoming edition, running between October 1-11, will open with perhaps the buzziest title at Cannes this year, Los Javis’s “La Bola Negra,” and close with the second buzziest, Jordan Firstman’s “Club Kid.” With over 270 features in the program, the festival will welcome 16 national Oscar submissions, including Brazil’s own “Gugu’s World,” “La Bola Negra,” Lukas Dhont’s “Coward,” and Markus Schleinzer’s “Rose,” starring Sandra Hüller in a transformative performance. Other major films to play at the festival include Beth de Araújo’s “Josephine,” Diego Luna’s “Ashes,” and Benjamin Naishtat’s “Glaxo.”

The festival’s homegrown talent strand, Premiére Brasil, has expanded into several sub-strands, with over 100 films vowing for the coveted Redentor Trophy. World premieres include Brazilian closing gala “100 Days,” the first live-action film by “Rio” helmer Carlos Saldanha; lauded docmaker Lucia Murat’s “The Hinterlands of Our Memories,” chronicling the country’s tough military dictatorship; and Pedro Waddington’s “Fernanda,” a documentary on the life of Oscar-nominated Brazilian acting legend Fernanda Montenegro (“Central Station”).

South Korea is this year’s country of focus at RioMarket, the festival’s industry sidebar running October 1-10. This year’s event will feature lengthy discussions on burning topics such as AI, diversity, TikTok, and awards strategies, with more being announced soon.

Speaking with Variety ahead of kicking off this year’s edition, Santiago says the festival’s opening and closing films “translate our desire to be in communication with younger audiences.” “These are films that are not hermetic; they have an interesting visual language and a well-constructed sense of dramaturgy. They are, from a macro point of view, more commercial films; they can reach wider audiences. We, as a festival, want to put forward new talent, but solid talent, because it’s not just about being young and new.”

The programmer noticed a rise in contemporary stories told through a lens of the past, but that also say something about where we are moving to as a society. “We have short-term memory as a society,” she points out. “Many times, we don’t know about our own stories. ‘La Bola Negra,’ ‘Coward,’ ‘Prima Facie’ tell stories that use dramaturgy to usher in societal issues we might have either forgotten or not spoken about enough.”

Santiago and her team also purposefully wanted to program films that give the public a “sense of inner calm.” “I don’t think we should walk out of every film feeling like the world is going to end. Cinema has this capacity to get us out of our comfort zone, but also usher us into a place of hope and belief in humanity. Cinema isn’t there just to drive us to madness. We need to lean into this duality of the form.”

Asked about what the festival slate can tell us about the current state of Brazilian cinema following back-to-back banner years with Walter Salles’s “I’m Still Here,” and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent,” Santiago mentions how several docs are telling the stories of some of Brazil’s greatest, including Montenegro, singer Elza Soares and Dior muse Vera Valdez.

“These are people who make us proud to be Brazilian. I am a very, very proud Brazilian and I do what I do out of a desire to bring our stories and culture to the world and bring the world to my country. Brazil is a curious country; Rio audiences are very curious and very open to different ideas.”

Premiére Brasil has grown exponentially over the years, turning into an umbrella that sees sidebar sections focused on coming-of-agers, documentaries, genre, and more. “With Premiére Brasil, I think about carving pathways for audiences to understand the films that are coming out from our country,” says Santiago.

“We started with the competitive strands, and we have found out that we needed new ways of organizing all the work that was coming out,” she adds. “We have several entry points for audiences to connect with Brazilian cinema. When I think about the selection, I think about consistent high quality, and allowing Brazilian audiences to understand Brazilian cinema isn’t one singular thing. Our cinema is plural. I don’t want audiences to say they are going to the cinema to watch a Brazilian film; I want them to seek genre films, dramas, coming-of-agers, which just so happen to be Brazilian.”

This year, Santiago worked on championing national coming-of-agers. “They used to be quite the American monopoly for a long time,” she notes. “If we want to attract young generations to cinemas, they need to see themselves on screen. We need to foment a cinemagoing habit from an early age, when they are teens.”

Another focus point this year is the festival’s strengthened relationship with Spain and the Spanish film industry. Not only is a major Spanish film opening the festival, but leading Spanish producer Esther García is also presiding over the jury. “This is a relationship we need to pay great attention to,” says Santiago. “It’s a natural pathway for Brazilian producers.”

“Today, I see young people in Brazil actively trying to learn Spanish, which is something I didn’t see ten years ago,” she says. “There’s this latent desire from a new Brazilian generation to be connected with their Latin heritage and cultural identity.”

Santiago says the Latin world used to feel “a bit foreign” to Brazilians, but today, the country widely recognizes itself as part of the cultural identity. “Brazilian cinema wants to be in conversation with Latin cinema, and Latin cinema wants to tap into the huge market that is Brazil. Spain consolidates a lot of Spanish-speaking cinema, and I believe it is the ideal partner to allow us to grow as an industry and build more and more partnerships with the world.”

The festival also platforms some of Brazil’s most anticipated series. After premiering hit crime series “Tremembé” last year, the festival will screen Amazon MGM Studios’ “Marília Mendonça: All the Feels,” a highly awaited documentary about superstar singer Marília Mendonça, who died in a tragic plane crash in 2021. Other major series to screen at the festival include Aly Muritiba’s “City of God: The Fight Rages On” and Leonardo Lacca and Marcelo Lordello’s “Delegado,” produced by Mendonça Filho and Oscar-nominated Emilie Lesclaux.

Santiago says she “doesn’t want to make a festival by-the-book.” “I want a festival that can face the issues of our contemporary world,” she adds. “I’ve been in the industry for over 30 years. I’ve seen VHS turn into DVDs, turn into digital, turn into streaming. I believe a festival needs to not only understand new formats, but work on the best way of welcoming them and embedding them into the identity of the festival. I am far from conservative in this sense.”

“Something very special about the festival is the trust audiences have in us,” she emphasizes. “Audiences are willing to take a chance, and this allows us to be a bit bolder with the programme, and to take risks. And it’s important to know how to take risks, because audiences don’t want just the obvious. Yes, they want ‘La Bola Negra,’ but that is the gateway to another ten films they might not be aware of and will come to love and be challenged by.”