‘Lula’ Review: Oliver Stone’s Documentary About Brazilian President Is Illuminating & Accessible – Cannes Film Festival

The indigenous Yanomami tribe living in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Brazil and Venezuela is dwindling. Only 35,000 remain.

EXCLUSIVE: Out of the Cannes market, Sony Pictures Classics has bought North American rights and a raft of international territories on Walter Salles‘ anticipated first narrative feature in more than a decade: I’m Still Here.

Siddhant Adlakha Directed by Oliver Stone (and co-directed by Rob Wilson), the 90-minute political portrait “Lula” covers a vast amount of historical and contemporary ground. However, despite its handful of rousing moments, the documentary — about Brazil’s current pro-worker president, Lula da Silva — comes from a limited perspective that prevents a fuller examination of the man, his myth and the people who believe in him.

Bury is set for its first Food and Drink Festival begins with dozens of stalls across the town centre and entertainment during the first half of the Bank Holiday weekend. The festival will see Bury town centre packed with pop-up food markets, artisan drinks, craft stalls, music and live entertainment between 9am – 4.30pm on Friday, May 24 and Saturday May, 25.

Motel Destino, directed by Karim Aïnouz, begins with a burst of energy and intrigue, setting up a promising neo-noir thriller set against the vibrant backdrop of Northeastern Brazil. The film follows Heraldo (Iago Xavier) and his brother, whose favorite pastime of beach outings and capoeira practice belies their darker side as petty criminals indebted to a local madam. Their latest assignment — a high-stakes murder — plunges them into a realm of danger and desperation. However, despite its gripping start and lush cinematography, the film ultimately loses its way, bogged down by a sluggish middle act and narrative inconsistencies.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Welcome to the Motel Destino, which may be some distance from the Hotel California, but is very much programmed to receive — or give, if that’s your preference. With mirrors on the ceiling but definitely no pink champagne on ice, the run-down roadside sex den that houses most of Karim Aïnouz’s Olympically horny new film isn’t so much a palace of pleasure as a this-will-do hideaway for the illicitly amorous couples (or throuples, or more, no judgment here) checking into any of its hastily wiped-down rooms.

Argentinian director Federico Luis’s first film Simon of the Mountain has won the Grand Prize at the 63rd edition of Cannes Critics’ Week.

EXCLUSIVE: Film Independent has named the six filmmakers selected for its third annual Episodic Directing Intensive: John Gutierrez, Lorena Lourenço, Alfonso Morgan-Terrero, Huriyyah Muhammad, Kelsey Taylor and So Young Shelly Yo.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Shot between his directing Alicia Vikander in “Firebrand” and Kristen Stewart in “Rosebushpruning,” “Motel Destino,” which bows in Cannes Competition on May 22, can be seen as a return by Brazil’s now most international director to his Brazilian roots. This axis between international and local, plays out in “Motel Destino” and Aïnouz insists, in now his whole career. An erotic thriller, “Motel Destino” turns on Dayana, the young wife of a roadside sex hotel owner who seduces on-the-run minor mobster Heraldo for great sex.

Jamie Lang Announced from this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Projeto Paradiso – a Brazilian private foundation that supports local film and TV professionals – is teaming with the Centre des Écritures Cinématographiques (CECI) – an artistic cultural center in Moulin d’Andé, France – on a new screenwriting residency for Brazilian filmmakers. The initiative, part of the Projeto Paradiso Residencies Program, has also received support from the French Embassy in Brazil.

Martin Dale Contributor Porter+Craig Film and Media Distribution, run by veteran industry executives Jeff Porter and Keith L. Craig has acquired worldwide rights to Gonçalo Galvão Teles’ “Nothing Ever Happened.” The film has enjoyed considerable success on the festival circuit, including awards in the CinEuphoria Awards, Cinequest, Chicago Latino Film Festival, Mostra Internacional de São Paulo and Punta Del Est Film Festival in Uruguay, as well as 11 nominations in the Portuguese Film Academy’s Sophia Awards. Produced by Luis Galvão of Portugal’s Fado Filmes and co-produced by Raquel Morte and Antonio Gonçalves Junior, the pic is a co-production between Fado Filmes, Entre Chien et Loup (Belgium) and Grafo Audiovisual (Brazil).

Holly Jones Brazilian auteur Carolina Markowicz will head to Bucharest to hone her third feature, “The Funeral.” In development, the film was selected for the 2024 Pop Up Residency, pairing Markowicz with multi-prized Romanian producer Ada Solomon for a three-week consultancy. “It’s truly a privilege to be able to dialogue with an industry professional like Ada, a producer who has made some films I truly admire. Daring, original and different.

Oliver Stone is in Cannes today for a Special Screening of Lula, a documentary he co-directed with Rob Wilson about the unbelievable comeback of Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. The film chronicles his extraordinary journey in 2022 to regain the Brazilian presidency after spending nineteen months in prison. This happened after a hacker exposed a conspiracy meant to take down the labor leader in a corruption scandal that tied back to Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and the most powerful judge in the country. It’s a story you have to see to believe. Here, Stone discusses his film, and how the four-time Oscar winner hopes to mount one final major drama after a career spanning Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Wall Street, JFK, Natural Born Killers and so many others. He also revisits his position on Vladimir Putin, whom he interviewed extensively several years ago, in light of recent events that have ratcheted global tensions.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Oliver Stone is talking about “Lula,” his new documentary about Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which is premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, when the conversation turns to American politics. The conspiracy-minded director, who’s never seen a grassy knoll without glimpsing a second gunman on it, is drawing an analogy between Lula’s political travails, involving a corruption investigation that led to a 580-day prison stint, and those of Donald Trump. That’s when the film’s publicist interjects and politely tries to steer the topic back to the documentary.

Brazilian production powerhouse Gullane, which is behind Netflix’s “Senna” and Cannes competition title “Motel Destino,” has closed international co-production pacts on new projects from Cao Hamburger (”The Year My Parents Went on Vacation”) and Sandra Kogut (“Three Summers”). France’s Playtime and Portugal’s Ukbar Filmes will co-produce Hamburger’s “School Without Walls.” Playtime will also handle international sales on the true and inspiring story of Braz Nogueira, principal of a public school in Heliopolis, one of Brazil’s biggest slums.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Brazilian social impact entertainment company Maria Farinha Films has taken a minority stake in Joanna Natasegara’s London-based production company Violet Films, which is known for high-profile docs such as “White Helmets,” “Virunga,” “The Edge of Democracy” and Prince Harry’s Netflix series “Invictus.” Leonardo DiCaprio and Barry Jenkins are involved as producer and writer, respectively, in Violet Films’ upcoming feature film adaptation of “Virugna” for Netflix. São Paulo-based Maria Farinha Films is a leading studio in Latin America, known for its hit Globoplay Original “Aruanas” — created by the company’s co-founders Estela Renner and Marcos Nisti — about four women in a São Paulo environmental NGO battling devastation wrought by a mining corporation.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Few companies in the world have had such as impact on their local film industry than Globo Filmes, the feature co-production arm of Brazilian giant Globo, which is Latin America’s biggest communications conglomerate. Over the last 25 years, Globo Filmes has backed more than 500 movies, almost all through co-production.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent A key driver in Brazil’s late 1990s cinema resurgence, Globo Filmes has co-produced iconic box office blockbusters, Oscar and “A” Fest plays, arthouse breakouts. movies sparking big TV spin-offs.

Jamie Lang Brazil’s O2 Play, the distribution arm of O2 Filmes group, will host a Cannes market screening for director Marcelo Gomes‘ latest feature, “Portrait of a Certain Orient,” on Friday, May 17 at 1:30 p.m. in Lerins 4. Ahead of the screening, O2 has given Variety exclusive access to the romantic period drama’s international trailer.

Jamie Lang Buenos Aires-based production, sales, and distribution outfit FilmSharks is hosting a pair of market screenings for David Bisbano‘s animated feature “Dalia and the Red Book” at this year’s Marché du Film, and Variety has been given exclusive access to the first English-language trailer for the film. “Dalia” will screen twice at this year’s market, on Thursday, May 16, at 2:00 p.m. in Palais E and on Friday, May 17, at 9:30 a.m.