‘Lula’ Review: An Incomplete Portrait of Brazil’s Fiery Left-Wing President

Inside Out 2” just scored the biggest box office previews of 2024. Disney and Pixar‘s latest animated outing grossed $13 million in Thursday previews domestically, with $22.3 million worldwide. The family-friendly sequel is projected to launch between $80 million and $90 million this weekend.

In a global box office that’s still licking its wounds from the strike, here’s something to scream about: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the highest grossing movie in the Legendary and Warner Bros Monsterverse franchise at $570M around the world.

Running back Josh Jacobs of the Green Bay Packers said that the team and its fans will have to be cautious about which colors they wear when they take on the Philadelphia Eagles on Sept. 6 in Brazil.

Anna Marie de la Fuente As part of a strategy to build a new cinephile audience and revive the filmgoing experience in Brazil, São Paulo-based distributor O2 Play is theatrically releasing a selection of classic films, starting with A24’s 4K restored version of the seminal ‘80s Talking Heads concert docu, “Stop Making Sense” by Jonathan Demme. The company has also launched an app called “carteirinha de cinéfilo” (cinephile card), to offer moviegoers special discounts, collectibles and foster the theatrical experience.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix Brazil is bringing Paulo Coelho’s The Pilgrimage to the screen. The streamer has greenlit a film adaptation of the Brazilian author’s novel, which will shoot in Brazil and Spain.

Marcelo Cajueiro RIO DE JANEIRO — Canal Brasil, a key Brazilian industry player as the country’s pay-TV channel focused on national titles from independent producers, has announced a package of four fiction and doc TV series and a feature-length doc, which are set for release over 2025-2027. Feature-length doc “Dona Onete” is produced by Hysteria, the division dedicated to developing female narratives of top production company Conspiracao. It delivers a portrait of 84-year old singer Dona Onete, the “Queen of Carimbo,” a music genre traditional of Para, the Northern Brazilian state located in the Amazon Rainforest region.

Marcelo Cajueiro RIO DE JANEIRO — Latin America’s largest creativity event, Rio2C, will gather over June 4-9 at the Cidade das Artes complex, in Rio de Janeiro, about 50,000 participants, up from 44,000 last year, including some 1,600 speakers and representatives of about 1,100 companies. Modelled after SXSW, the fifth in-person edition of Rio2C will feature over 500 panels designed to promote the convergence of film/TV, music, innovation, tech, games, publishing, science, fashion, sustainability and sports. Rio2C 2024, which has “The Age of Awareness” as the central theme, opens Tuesday, June 4 with five summits, followed by three days of conferences and the market.

Marcelo Cajueiro RIO DE JANEIRO — Paris Entretenimento, the production arm of top Brazilian distribution company Paris, will produce two features, “My Life with Shurastey” and “Bahamas Club,” helmed by Afonso Poyart, director of Colin Farrell, Anthony Hopkins starrer “Solace” and just out Brazilian Netflix action thriller “Bionic.” “My Life with Shurastey”(“Minha vida com Shurastey”) is to be lensed in the U.S. and Argentina in the first semester of 2025, while “Bahamas Club” is scheduled to go into production in Brazil in the second half of 2025. Each pic has a budget about RS25 million ($5 million), Veronica Stumpf, head of Paris Entretenimento, told Variety. Based on the homonymous travel diary of Jesse Kozechen, “My Life with Shurastey” turns on a young Brazilian who quits his boring job in order to travel the Americas in a Volkswagen Beetle with his dog Shurastey.

Marcelo Cajueiro RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian version of pay-TV channel E! Entertainment will open this year singing reality competition series “Vocalizando” (Vocalizing), a production of LC Barreto, a historic production company. The show is co-produced with NBCUniversal. The series is in post-production and is due to open on Oct.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LB Entertainment, behind “Sintonía,” Netflix’s biggest Brazilian hit, has signed a first-look deal with Universo Online (UOL), the biggest news website in Brazil which had 99 million unique users in March 2024. In a groundbreaking swing for Brazil, but in line with the deal struck in 2022 by Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment and The Washington Post, the Brazilian strategic partnership will expand UOL’s brand of storytelling to all forms of filmed entertainment. Owned by Folha de São Paulo, Brazil’s No.

Ernest Cole, the first Black freelance photographer in South Africa, is known today for his contribution to documenting the Apartheid in the 1960s and racial attitudes in America in the 1970s. Born in 1940, he grew up in segregated South Africa before moving to the United States in his youth to evade persecution for his work.

The indigenous Yanomami tribe living in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Brazil and Venezuela is dwindling. Only 35,000 remain.

Julio Torres is one of the most popular voices in comedy. With credits in Saturday Night Live and two HBO shows where he’s listed as writer, star, and creator, Torres has become a landmark in the New York comedy scene.

Madonna’s visit to Mexico City as part of her Celebration Tour sparked a heated debate. The singer’s revelation that she had the opportunity to access clothing, jewelry, letters, and photos that belonged to Frida Kahlo, whom she deeply admires, stirred up controversy.

Motel Destino, directed by Karim Aïnouz, begins with a burst of energy and intrigue, setting up a promising neo-noir thriller set against the vibrant backdrop of Northeastern Brazil. The film follows Heraldo (Iago Xavier) and his brother, whose favorite pastime of beach outings and capoeira practice belies their darker side as petty criminals indebted to a local madam. Their latest assignment — a high-stakes murder — plunges them into a realm of danger and desperation. However, despite its gripping start and lush cinematography, the film ultimately loses its way, bogged down by a sluggish middle act and narrative inconsistencies.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Welcome to the Motel Destino, which may be some distance from the Hotel California, but is very much programmed to receive — or give, if that’s your preference. With mirrors on the ceiling but definitely no pink champagne on ice, the run-down roadside sex den that houses most of Karim Aïnouz’s Olympically horny new film isn’t so much a palace of pleasure as a this-will-do hideaway for the illicitly amorous couples (or throuples, or more, no judgment here) checking into any of its hastily wiped-down rooms.

Jamie Lang Announced from this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Projeto Paradiso – a Brazilian private foundation that supports local film and TV professionals – is teaming with the Centre des Écritures Cinématographiques (CECI) – an artistic cultural center in Moulin d’Andé, France – on a new screenwriting residency for Brazilian filmmakers. The initiative, part of the Projeto Paradiso Residencies Program, has also received support from the French Embassy in Brazil.

Holly Jones Brazilian auteur Carolina Markowicz will head to Bucharest to hone her third feature, “The Funeral.” In development, the film was selected for the 2024 Pop Up Residency, pairing Markowicz with multi-prized Romanian producer Ada Solomon for a three-week consultancy. “It’s truly a privilege to be able to dialogue with an industry professional like Ada, a producer who has made some films I truly admire. Daring, original and different.

Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, three times president of Brazil, was born in 1945. He grew up poor in Sao Paulo and left school early to help support his family. Having trained as a lathe operator, he reached a milestone when he became the first member of his family to earn more than the minimum wage. Initially reluctant to get involved in politics, he was president of the steelworkers’ union by the time he was 30, leading a strike that achieved better wages that he saw were soon soaked up by a rise in rents. “It was time for workers to think about ruling their own country,” he says in voice-over in Oliver Stone and Rob Wilson’s documentary, simply called Lula.

Carlos Aguilar For about the first hour of their documentary “The Falling Sky,” Brazilian directors Eryk Rocha and Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha introduce us to the traditions and ongoing plight of the Yanomami Indigenous people — namely, fending off invaders — without making their presence known. There are no title cards stating where we are and why, and the only voiceover we hear comes directly from the Yanomami, most often Davi Kopenawa, their current leader and co-author of a 2010 book bearing the same title as the film.