‘3%’s’ Boutique Filmes Unveils Five-Project Mipcom Slate (EXCLUSIVE)

John Hopewell

Click here to read the full article.

CANNES — Sao Paulo-based Boutique Filmes, which burst onto the international scene producing Netflix’s first big international hit, “3%,”is bringing to Mipcom a powerful slate of five new series projects.

Boutique’s Mipcom slate packs significant industry news. Wild Bunch TV, for example, has boarded “Gama,” one of the top new titles. John Brownlow (“The Miniaturist,” “Fleming”) has written the scripts to “Ratlines.”

More from Variety

At the same time, the slate says much about he ambitions of Boutique’s Filmes, which also has four series in development with Wild Sheep Content, the new company of Erik Barmack, Netflix’s former global originals head.

Like other iconic Netflix global hits from international producers, “3%” was seen by more viewers outside than inside Brazil. Headed at Mipcom by “Ratlines,” “Gama” and “Rota 66,” Boutique’s first slate retains that international punch – in creatives, characters, industry partners and appeal. Now in its fourth and final season, “3%” is sci-fi dystopia thriller. Also for Netflix, Boutique’s second series with Netflix, “Omniscient,” is set in a near future whose citizens are constantly followed by a small and almost imperceptible drone.

Boutique’s first full slate, however, describes a wide gamut in genre, tone, setting and creatives. It even includes Boutique’s third animation series, “Poba & Sagu,” which it will be actively shopping in Cannes at MipJunior this weekend.

Many, however, have social heft. Many too see Boutique actively attempting to bring on new talent, whether “3%’s” Pedro Aguilera, who created “Omniscient,” or Teo Poppovic, who is writing “Rota 66,” or Ana Reber, Patrícia Corso and Julia Resende on the maternity-themed project “My Son.”

Boutique has created development funds for projects. “We believe that as producers our main skill and mission is to find new voices and help them creating original stores,” said Gustavo Mello, an executive producer at Boutique Films who runs the company with brother and content director Tiago Mello and Eduardo Piagge, an executive producer and cinematographer.

He went on: “That’s our main business asset, the heart of our company and we believe that we really need to do that better today”. The 2019-20 slate:

*“Ratlines” A dark Cold War espionage thriller fictionalizing the gaps in post-WWII history about Mossad’s missions in the 1960s to hunt down Nazi war criminals hiding in hostile territories in South America.

Mixing action scenes and complex characters, such as the central Nazi hunter, and co-produced by Boutique Filmes and Connect3, a Cineflix Media Production company focused on international scripted content, “Ratlines’” scripts are “almost ready,” said Gustavo Mello. Yael Hedaya, (“Betipul,” original version of “In Treatment,” has consulted on the series, to ensure its authenticity, whose first season will have eight one-hour episodes.

“Gama” Wild Bunch TV is handling international distribution on “Gama,” a portrait of the extraordinary early abolitionist Luiz Gama, sold into slavery as a child, a self taught expert in law who freed some 1,500 slaves through intellect and stratagem. This is the fascinating story of a man who stood against the system and tried to collapse it from the inside instead of fighting violence with violence. It is inspiring and shows that one man can make a difference for the greater good,” said Tiago Mello.

Joel Zito Araújo (A Negação do Brasil). is set to direct the series, which is designed as a high-end drama set in a 1870 Sao Paolo with something of an air of “Peaky Blinders,” Mello added. “A big big SVOD platform in Brazil is in final negotiations to board the project.

“Rota 66” adapts the book by TV Globo journalist Caco Barcellos, which marks one of the most dangerous journalistic investigations in Brazil, said Gustavo Mello. Portrayed in the series, it exposed a death squad inside the elite unit of the São Paulo military police (ROTA) during Brazil’s military dictatorship. Victims were largely young, colored and poor from the city’s outskirts. Written by Poppovic (“3%,” “TOC”),”Rota 66” comprises six one-hours, marking Boutique’s entry into limited series creation. “This is the story of how police in Brazil rejected common concepts of justice to make their own kind of justice in the streets, which is even more violent and fearful compared with ‘Elite Squad,’ because it’s a silent violence,” said Gustavo Mello.

“Poba & Sagu” Made up of six 11 minute.episodes, with animation created by Jannerson Xavier at Brazil’s Histeria Studio, “Poba & Sagu” won the Anima Coaching 2019 Award at Anima Mundi, the biggest animation festival in Latin America. It talks about how the spirits of regular objects get uneasy when they are left out of place. The main characters, Poba and Sagu work together to bring tidiness to the Itos, a family full of fun but without much talent for order. An amazing pre school show which could be 60% financed out of Latin America, partly through tax credits, said Tiago Mello, the animated series is at first screenplay stage. Boutique Filmes is a three-time kids entertainment Intl. Emmy Award nominee, for Discovery Kids’ “O Zoo da Zu” (2015, 2017) and “SOS Fada Manu.”

“My Son” turns on Leon, a 10 year old boy who discovers he is adopted, and conceived in vitro, and the three women who could be his mothers. When the kid decides to unveil his past, these three women will find themselves forced to share this unique place in the kids heart, the synopsis runs. Created by emerging drama series female talents Ana Reber (“Sessão de Terapia”) and Patrícia Corso (“Coisa Mais Linda”) and directed by Julia Rezende (“Meu passado me condena,”Nesta data querida,” “Coisa Mais Linda”), the series sets out to explore “the contemporary telenovela” as a genre, and “close in mood to ‘This Is Us.’”

Best of Variety

Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.