Brazilian film festival to take in resort

Brazilian actress Paula Braun co-stars in Bollywood Dream, which will have its Australasian premiere during the Reel Brazil Film Festival in Queenstown in late September.

A sizzling selection of films from Brazil are a gift to the large Brazilian community in Queenstown and stories all New Zealanders can relate to, the festival director says.
The Reel Brazil Film Festival had expanded in its second year to include Queenstown, along with Wellington and Auckland, festival director Leandro Cavalcanti said.
Virtually all six award-winning Latin American-flavoured feature films and three documentaries get their Australasian premieres at the festival and will be presented at Reading Cinemas, in Queenstown Mall, between September 23 and 29.
The festival will be launched with two events.
Up to 70 patrons were expected at the Gala Opening cocktail party at the cinema, on September 23, between 6pm and 7pm, before the screening at 7.10pm.
The party was designed for business operators to network and invite clients to, and entry was $20.
Everyone was invited to the “Reel Brazil Festa”, at the Brazilian-owned Melt Bar, on lower Shotover St, on September 25.
A “full-blown Brazilian party” featuring live music by Sambanego, DJ Bobby Brazuka and cocktail specials was planned from 10pm and entry was $5, Mr Cavalcanti said.
Mr Cavalcanti, born in Minas Gerais, said he brought “the largest Brazilian event of New Zealand” to Queenstown, after a successful launch in Wellington last year, because the resort had the biggest Brazilian population in the country.
He said he was keen to show New Zealanders Brazilian cinema had more range than the violent dramas which had broken into the international mainstream, such as City of God and Elite Squad.
“These are excellent films showing different aspects of Brazil that New Zealanders can identify with.”
The line-up includes Love Stories Last Only 90 Minutes (2010), about an idle writer who suspects his wife is having an affair, and Bollywood Dream (2010), about a trio of Brazilian women who try to become Indian film stars.
Jean Charles (2009) is based on the true story of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian mistakenly killed by British police after the 2005 terrorist attacks in London.
Citizen Boilesen (2009) is a documentary which investigates the extraordinary life of Danish businessman Henning Albert Boilesen and the connections between Brazil’s business elite and the military dictatorship in the 1960s and ’70s.

Source: Otago Daily Times