Film Festival arrives in Rio community
For the first time, a Pacifying Police Unit will host a film screening in the favela. The Panorama of World Cinema, which will take place in the Complexo do Alemo, is happening alongside the Rio Film Festival.
Agência Brasil – Starting this Saturday, the 8th, the community of Complexo do Alemão will be able to attend a parallel event to the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, the Panorama of World Cinema. This is the first time the festival has brought the event to a cinema located within a Pacifying Police Unit (UPP). The series of screenings begins at 19:30 PM at the Cine Carioca Nova Brasília, built by the city government in Complexo do Alemão.
According to Sergio Sá Leitão, president of the Film Distribution Company (RioFilme), sponsor of the festival, the community audience will have access to ten foreign films. “It’s a kind of anthology of the festival. It’s a mini-festival held there with ten films, one per day. We sought to select films from different countries and genres, so that the population can have the festival experience where they live.”
The Panorama of World Cinema is aimed at a young adult audience and includes everything from comedies and dramas to adventure and horror films. Sergio Sá Leitão highlighted that the regular programming of Cine Carioca will not be altered during the Rio Film Festival screenings. Tickets for the sessions are affordably priced - R$ 8 (full price) and R$ 4 (half price).
The first film to be shown in the program is L'Apollonide, The Loves of the House of Tolerance, from France, selected for the competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
The president of RioFilme highlighted the importance of the initiative for the social inclusion of residents in the region. "It's an expansion of access, a democratization of access. Cinema itself is that: an action of democratizing access."
He reiterated that RioFilme's goal is to bring the festival experience to the entire city. "We want it to truly be a Rio Film Festival, considering Rio de Janeiro in its entirety and not just the south zone or the center." Since it began sponsoring the festival in 2009, the company has insisted on its expansion to the north and west zones. "And, little by little, the festival is ceasing to be an event of the south zone and transforming into a city-wide event."
In nine months of operation, the Cine Carioca Nova Brasília, which opened in December 2010, has already received 65 people. It has a capacity of 89 people.
The Panorama of World Cinema program will run until the 18th. The following films will be shown: The Tree of Love, by Zhang Yimou, China, on the 9th; The Uprising, by Raphael Aguinaga, Argentina, on the 10th; Love Triangle, by Tom Tykwer, Germany, on the 11th; Pearl Jam Twenty, by Cameron Crowe, United States, on the 12th; Paul – Close Encounters with This Figure, by Greg Mottola, United States, on the 13th; Shark Night 3D, by David R. Ellis, United States, on the 15th; The Thing, by Matthijs van Heijningen, United States, on the 16th; Torrente 4 3D, by Santiago Segura, Spain, on the 17th; and Trollhunter, by André Øvredal, Norway, on the 18th.