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If Brazil’s film industry faces unprecedented threats under far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, let’s hope this kind of adventurous filmmaking–which ruminates on the country’s unaddressed injustices that shaped the country of today–isn’t in the populist administration’s sights. All the Dead Ones is an accomplished film by directing duo Caetano Gotardo and Marco Dutra, rich in the nation’s poetry and music, daring in highlighting women’s voices while commenting on Brazil’s history of inequality of wealth, class, and race.

The film hinges on the white, middle-class Soares family in São Paulo at the turn of the twentieth century, a decade after Brazil banned slavery and when the nascent republic was lurching from coup to dictatorship. Before abolition, the Soares were wealthy coffee-plantation owners, but their diminished place in social strata has meant the women of the family shelter in relative obscurity in Brazil’s largest city.

There are a host of important, even vital ideas behind “All the Dead Ones,” a hybrid period piece addressing Brazil’s unresolved legacy of slavery and the imprint it’s had on an all-too-often downplayed contemporary racism of malignant toxicity. Set largely in 1899, 11 years after the abolition of slavery but designed so modern São Paulo increasingly bleeds into the picture, : Having a character express her colonialist guilt by seeing the ghosts of dead slaves feels far too stale when presented with such Freudian hysteria. Caetano Gotardo and Marco Dutra, collaborating as directors for the first time, channel the artificiality of late Manoel de Oliveira but without the enticing mystery, hampered by an understandable earnestness that yearns for a more subtle approach. International prospects are uncertain at best.

It doesn’t help that the character one instantly bonds with dies after the first few minutes. Josefina (Alaíde Costa) is an...

The Berlinale lineup already includes films from Jia Zhangke, Matías Piñeiro, and more, but now the competition slate has arrived and it’s an incredibly promising selection. Headed by Carlo Chatrian, it includes many of our most-anticipated films of the year with Christian Petzold’s Undine, Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran, Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days, Philippe Garrel’s The Salt of Tears, Abel Ferrara’s Siberia, and Caetano Gotardo & Marco Dutra’s All the Dead Ones, plus recent festival favorites: Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow and Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

Check out the lineup below and return for our coverage.

Competition

Berlin Alexanderplatz

Germany / Netherlands

by Burhan Qurbani

with Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, Richard Fouofié Djimeli

World premiere

Dau. Natasha

Germany / Ukraine / United Kingdom / Russian Federation

by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel

with Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo,...

The Berlin International Film Festival on Wednesday morning revealed the main competition lineup and gala selections for festival’s 70th edition.

The festival, which begins February 20, will screen 18 films in competition, including movies from Sally Potter, Kelly Reichardt, and Eliza Hittman. Six are from female directors.

Among the gala presentations is Pixar’s” Onward.” The Dan Scanlon-helmed urban fantasy includes the voices of Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Mel Rodriguez, Kyle Bornheimer, Lena Waithe, and Ali Wong.

Here is the complete list:

Competition

“Berlin Alexanderplatz” (Germany/Netherlands)

Director: Burhan Qurbani

Cast: Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, and Richard Fouofié Djimeli

“Dau. Natasha” (Germany/Ukraine/United Kingdom/Russia)

Directors: Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel

Cast: Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo, Alexei Blinov, and Luc Bigé

“Domangchin yeoja” (“The Woman Who Ran”) (South Korea)

Director: Hong Sangsoo

Cast: Kim Minhee,...

The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled its 2020 line-up, with 18 films playing in competition from directors such as Abel Ferrara, Sally Potter, Christian Petzold, Hong Sangsoo, Kelly Reichardt and Eliza Hittman.

Abel Ferrara’s Willem Dafoe starrer “Siberia” is a world premiere in competition, as is Sally Potter’s “The Roads Not Taken.”

Among the U.S. films at the Berlinale, Reichardt’s “First Cow” is an international premiere, and so too is Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.”

Pixar’s latest animation, “Onward”, also has its international premiere out of competition in the Special Galas section.

Previous Berlin Silver Bear winner Christian Petzold’s latest, “Undine”, world premieres, while Iranian director Mohammed Rasoulof, who is not allowed to travel outside his home country, world premieres his latest, “There is No Evil.”

Six out of the 18 films in competition are helmed by female directors.

The 70th edition of the festival...

Rust Trailer Aly Muritiba‘s Rust (2018) movie trailer stars Tifanny Dopke, Giovanni de Lorenzi, Enrique Diaz, Clarissa Kiste, and Dudah Azevedo. Rust‘s plot synopsis: “Tati and Renet are high school students who share an instant connection over social media that deepens during a class trip. Their nascent relationship screeches to a halt [...]

Continue reading: Rust (2018) Movie Trailer: A Bad Social Media Decision Has Consequences...

"I just want to disappear." The first official trailer has debuted for an indie drama from Brazil titled Rust, which is currently premiering at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival this month in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition category. Directed by Aly Muritiba, the film deals with a group of high school teens and a case of sexual abuse that gets even worse when a private video leaks to the entire school. The film specifically focuses on the brewing relationship between teens Tati and Renet, as well as their home lives. The film's cast is lead by Giovanni de Lorenzi, Tifanny Dopke, Enrique Diaz, and Clarissa Kiste. This looks like a very strong drama from Brazil addressing a very important topic of the times - and how everything gets even crazier when it's spread among teens in high school. Seems like it's worth catching at the festival. Here's the first official trailer for Aly Muritiba's Rust,...

While the Sundance Film Festival is becoming known as the place where the next awards season favorites are found, it’s also a terrific platform for world cinema. Some of our favorite foreign film have been discovered in Park City, and the Brazilian picture “Rust” looks like one that can’t be missed this year at Sundance. Today, we’re excited to debut the exclusive trailer for the movie.

Directed by Aly Muritiba, and starring Giovanni De Lorenzi, Tifanny Dopke, Enrique Diaz, Clarissa Kiste, Dudah Azevedo, and Pedro Inoue, the story follows a teenager whose world changes when an intimate video leaks to her entire school.

Continue reading ‘Rust’ Trailer: Worlds Crumble When An Intimate Video Leaks [Sundance Exclusive] at The Playlist.