LOCARNO —Brazil’s Pandora Filmes, one of the country’s premier independent distributors, has secured Brazilian distribution rights to “Tomorrow’s Rain”(“Amanhã Já Não Chove”), a Portuguese portrait of bourgeois malaise which was brought onto the market last weekend at the Locarno Festival’sMatch Me!
Pandora Filmes’ distribution slate takes in “Parasite,” “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” and “R.M.N.”
Set up at Lisbon’s Omaja and Brazil’s Capuri, which cut the deal with Pandora, “Tomorrow Rain” marks the fiction feature debut of Portuguese director-producer Bernardo Lopes at Omaja, a 2021 Portuguese Film Academy Sophia Award winner for his short “Moço.”
Produced by Lopes and Eduardo Rezende, “Tomorrow’s Rain”will star José Pimentão, who played Ramiro in Netflix’s “1899,” and João Nunes Monteiro, a Portuguese Film Academy Sophia Award winner best actor award winner for “Mosquito” in 2021 and best supporting actor winner last year for “The Tsugua Diaries.”
Written by Lopes and Francisco Mira Godinho, who together co-wrote and co-directed TV mini-series “Lugar 54,” an Omaja production for Portuguese public broadcaster RTP, “Tomorrow’s Rain” depicts one summer day in the life of a crumblingfamilyat the peak of the Portuguese financial crisisof 2012.
“‘Tomorrow’s Rain’ is a feature fiction family drama that makes an urgent portrayal of a marginalized southern Portuguese region during the 2012 financial crisis, from the POV of a decadent bourgeois family that suffers from a tumor in the form of a secret, consuming them until the day of their inevitable end,” Lopes toldPvNew.
The project catches Brazil’s movie industry as it rebounds under Brazilian President’s Lula Inácio Lula da Silva’s new government, which took office on Jan. 1. It has promised to plow just under $1 billion in 2023 into the country’s audiovisual sector.
In one sign of upswing, a bilateral co-production fund between Brazil’s film-TV agency Ancine and Portugal’s ICA film institute will re-launch on Aug. 17. Any co-production with Brazil can hope for its Brazilian partner to step up to the table with more robust support than at any time in the last four years.
Parallel to this, Portugal’s film scene has been “living a new era since theimplementation of the Portuguese cash rebate. The recententrance of the major streaming services in our market has also impacted the growth of thePortuguese film productions in their number and dimension,” Lopes toldPvNew.
“This has enabled us to have more international co-production opportunities,” Lopes added. “Omaja’s foundation is recent, but we’ve beenable to develop, finance and produce many films and audiovisual projects in the past couple of years from new and young voices with undeniable international appeal. We believe that in the near future we’ll have theopportunity to grow theseprojects with international partners.”
A coming of age tale set in a village in the Algarve, where Lopes grew up, “Moço” won a best short award at the Academie des Cesar Les Nuits en Or.
Decadent bourgeois family that suffers from a tumor in the form of a secret, consuming them until the day of their inevitable end,” Lopes toldPvNew.
As a project, “Tomorrow’s World” Portugal’s LSF – Lusófona Filmes screenplay competition, its single cash prize worth €125,000 ($137,500). It is also backed by RTP.
The project catches Brazil’s movie industry as it rebounds under Brazilian President’s Lula Inácio Lula da Silva’s new government, which took office on Jan. 1
