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. Photo
supplied.
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.
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