Sundance Premiere ‘Malu,’ Inspired by Brazilian Stage Star Malu Rocha, Swooped on by Pluto Film (EXCLUSIVE)
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Berlin-based sales agent Pluto Film has pounced on international sales rights to Brazil’s “Malu,” the only completely non-European production in this year’s Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Competition, inspired by first feature director Pedro Freire’s troubled relationship with his mother Malu Rocha, a Brazilian actor.
“Since we love to work with new voices in global cinema, we were immediately convinced, that ‘Malu’ would fit perfectly to Pluto Film’s line-up,” said Pluto Film’s Benjamin Cölle, its managing director and head of sales.
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“The film offers a unique storytelling approach from an up-and-coming director, who tackles complex themes like ambition, family, and survival in a specific cultural context with boldness. The film‘s narrative is rich with interpersonal drama and cultural context and its multi-dimensional characters add depth,” he added.
Freire has taken the personal and structured it around the relationship between three generations of women, the daughter, Joana, is played by Carol Duarte (“La Chimera,” “The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao”), with Yara de Novaes tackling the challenging role of Malu, and Lili, Malu’s own mother is a part taken on with gusto by Juliana Carneiro da Cunha (“Vazante,” “Lavoura Arcaica”).
Malu’s vocal warmup consisting of laughter opens the film. The levity is fleeting. Malu is used to those around her following her often-changing moods. Her high spirits are often followed by bursts of jealousy, hope, love and anger.
Circulating through the film like a wind is trauma. Each character in their way is gripped by it, and it blows in varying ways between them. “Over time I began to realize how the trauma of one generation affects the next, how there is an invisible line that connects Lili’s traumas to Malu’s madness. At the end, there’s a transmission of ancestral trauma that is very recurrent in real life,” said producer Tatiana Leite at Rio-based Bubbles Project.
In the film Rocha is troubled by her past glories and hopes: “Malu Rocha was an artist of the collective, she lived art as a way of being in the world politically, through the theater companies she participated in, such as Teatro Oficina de São Paulo,” said Freire.
“I believe that her self-centeredness emerges as a way of protecting herself from the troubles of life,” she added. In the film, we don’t know if her emotional instability comes from the traumas of the dictatorship, a difficult separation with her ex-husband, her violent relationship with her own mother, the lack of money, the structural sexism that makes it difficult for a middle-aged actress to get a job. “Probably all of these things at the same time. She is a meteor, powerful, burning fast,” Freire observed.
“We are convinced that ‘Malu’ will resonate with audiences across the globe, as it is not only a film for people interested in independent global cinema, but for all who like to engage with varied and non-traditional life experiences: Audiences who like to reflect on diverse family dynamics and gender role discussions, as well as social issues and challenges,” Cölle added.
“Malu,” heads to Sundance as its only fully Brazilian production. Producing any project in Brazil under Bolsonaro was a challenge. “Pedro presented to me the idea of ‘Malu’ right after President Dilma’s impeachment, a moment when several things in our country started to fall apart,” Leite told Variety.
Development for the project was completed without external support, and the completed script sat waiting for funds to open up. Finally the Rio City cinema agency Riofilme, after a few years paralyzed, opened a new call for film projects, “a tough one, with more than 650 submissions, because there were many projects like ours, waiting for an opportunity, but we won a subsidy, and one year after, among the adversities of a low-budget film in a big city like Rio, we’ve made it,” Leite added.
Bubbles Projects, whose recent titles include co-producing San Sebastian winning and Goya-nominated “Puan,” produced Freire’s debut alongside TvZero (“Gabriel and the Mountain”), its production partner on prior Sundance title “Loveling.”
The production prioritized the craft of acting by carving out a rare three-week rehearsal period from their tight budget. Embracing a modified Cassavetes’ methodology, the cast engaged in unscripted improvisations, using the screenplay as a loose guide rather than a strict blueprint. This preparation enabled the crew to capture the essence of each scene in just one or two takes. The 100-page script completed shooting in 18 days.
“Rehearsals are very important in my work, I rehearsed with the actors in all my short films, and I think I learned some of that from directing theater. It’s during rehearsals that I discover what film we’re making, and adapt everything to fit the actor’s souls. I don’t look for actors who fit pre-conceived characters, I write and rewrite the characters for the actors I’m interested in working with,” said Freire.
The prestige of Sundance is a marker of quality projects being produced in a culturally revitalized Brazil. Leite is optimistic of what the return of Lula could bring given his track record, particularly with regards to a regional approach to cultural funding.
“Lula’s previous government generated a very singular phenomenon in Brazil, that I don’t see anywhere else in the world: New filmmakers (directors, producers, technicians) emerging from all the different regions of the country started to make their own films, telling their own story, regional funds were established (some even resisted even during Bolsonaro’s government, like for example in Pernambuco and Minas Gerais), and together with the regional quotas system for the main public funds, FSA, (reopened last year), new voices from North to South can be noticed.” she said,
“I believe Brazilian cinema now is really representing the diversity of the country with the genuine gaze of those who belong to these places and realities. Such a diverse country can finally be represented in images with its diversity.”
“Malu” world premieres at Sundance Jan. 21. Led by Daniela and Benjamin Cölle as co-CEO’s since Jan. 2022 and ocusing on arthouse and cross-over films, especially those by emerging talents, but with a passion for family films and elevated genre, Pluto Film’s latest pickups take in ‘Empty Nets’ from director Behrooz Karamizade, which won the Special Jury Prize in main competition at Karlovy Vary and Feature Fiction Award, the top prize at Australia’s Adelaide Film Festival.
This year, Pluto Film also acquired “Forever-Forever,” Ukrainian filmmaker Anna Buryachkova‘s first feature which world premiered at Venice’s Horizons Extra.
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