Karim Aïnouz’s Erotic Thriller ‘Motel Destino’ Begins Shoot In Brazil; The Match Factory Boards Int’l Sales
07.08.2023 - 09:03
/ deadline.com
Karim Aïnouz has begun the Brazil shoot of erotic thriller Motel Destino, in a return to his roots after English-language drama Firebrand starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law.
The new feature began filming in the Brazilian-Algerian filmmaker’s native region of Ceará in north-eastern Brazil on July 31.
The Match Factory, which already represents several of Aïnouz’s films such as Mariner of the Mountains (2021), Invisible Life (2019) and Praia do Futuro (2014), has announced its acquisition of the international sales rights as filming gets underway.
Motel Destino marks Aïnouz’s eighth feature after Firebrand, which world premiered in Competition in Cannes this year, and 2019 Un Certain Regard winner The Invisible Life.
Aïnouz describes the film’s motel setting as “the main character of the plot”, as an intersection for chronic issues of contemporary Brazil in which the future of the country’s youth has been stolen by a toxic and oppressive elite, against which rebellion and violence are often the only out.
“Motel Destino is the Brazilian saga of the encounter between a person on the run, utterly helpless, and another who is being crushed in an abusive marriage,” he says.
“Motel Destino is, above all, a love story. The love between a peripheral young man who lives against a system that wants him dead and a woman who resists the attacks of patriarchy against her own life,” he said.
Aïnouz’s colorful home state of Ceará will set the visual and narrative tone.
Local talents, Iago Xavier and Nataly Rocha – selected via auditions with more than 500 actors – take on the lead roles, alongside the Emmy nominated actor Fábio Assunção (Songs of Betrayal).
“I’m very interested in talking about crime, not sordid crime, but crime as