Two Brazilian Festival Favourites Get $15,000 Each for a Foreign Rollout
Screen Brasil, an initiative from Embratur and Projeto Paradiso to boost the international distribution of Brazilian features, has picked its next two recipients: Allan Deberton's “Gugu's World” and Grace Passô's “Our Secret.” Both premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year, and their festival runs since have been kind: “Our Secret” won the Kikito for best film at Gramado, and “Gugu's World” became Brazil's entry for Best International Feature at the 2027 Academy Awards.
The support is $15,000 per film for the international rollout, covering subtitling, marketing, publicity and other audience-building in the selected territories.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
Two Berlinale premieres, a Kikito and a national Oscar submission is an unusually decorated pair of films to hand a distribution subsidy to. If the program wants to test itself, the candidates worth watching are the ones with no laurels at all.
These two don't look like the hard cases, though. “Our Secret” is Passô's feature directorial debut, its support is aimed at U.S. and Canadian distribution, and Italy's The Open Reel is handling its international sales — that reads more like a film with a plausible commercial path than a gamble.
Braga's framing is the giveaway: Embratur's audiovisual coordinator describes supporting international distribution as turning features into showcases for Brazil's soft power, because on screens worldwide they introduce audiences to the country's biomes, cuisine and cultural heritage. That is a travel brochure with a plot, which may be the most honest subsidy rationale on offer.