“Blue Blood” wins big at Rio de Janeiro Fest's Premiere Brazil

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival handed out its Redentor prizes on Wednesday, Oct 8 awarding films in the Premiere Brazil competition, which highlights new work by homegrown filmmakers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Pernambuco director Lírio Ferreira’s Blue Blood topped the list with 3 prizes: best fiction feature, best director, and best supporting actor for Rômulo Braga.

In the feature length documentary line up, director Theresa Jessouroun’s Point Blank — which delves into police violence and corruption in the city of Rio — snatched the top two prizes in its category, scooping both the best film and best director awards.

There were also double wins for Chico Teixeira’s coming-of-age drama Absence — which picked best actor for Matheus Fagundes and a special jury prize — as well as for Sao Paulo director Gregorio Graziosi’s Obra which won best cinematography for DOP André Brandão and received the FIPRESCI best Latin American film award.

Bianca Joy Porte won the best actress award for her role in director Daniel Aragão’s father-and-daughter relationship drama I Swear I'll Leave This Town, while the best supporting actress award went to Fernanda Rocha for her part in Iberê Carvalho’s The Last Drive-in Theater.

Actor Othon Bastos (Central Station, Heleno) received a lifetime achievement award for his body of work, and Mexican writer and director Guillermo Arriaga (The Burning Plain, Babel) was presented with the FIPRESCI Latin American personality of the year award.

In the New Trends section of the competition, Redentors were awarded to Davi Pretto’s Castanha for best film, and Eva Randolph’s The Good Behavior for best short. Director Alfeu França received a special jury prize for his 30-minute short The White Goddess.

"The films awarded were chosen because they all have a strong personality and flirt between strong social commentary and poetic fables about the world we live in," said jury president Karim Ainouz (Praia do Futuro).

In the audience awards, best film went to Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa's Casa Grande, while the best documentary was Rodrigo Felha’s Favela Gay, which shows the life of the LGBT community in the slums of Rio de Janeiro setting the subject against a background of trafficking, evangelical churches and the neighborhood's everyday life.

The best short award was given to director Andre Amparo’s Max Uber, an inquiry into the work of the internationally acclaimed Brazilian visual artist.

Spread over fifteen days from Sept. 24 to Oct. 8, the Rio Film Festival has exhibited over 300 international and local films in more than 25 locations around the city, with an estimate of 300,000 tickets sold.