Record-Breaking Number of Brazilian Films, Strong International Alliances and Women at the Top: 8 Takeaways From the Rio Film Festival 2025

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The festival felt buzzy with dozens of sold-out screenings and young audiences queuing across town to try landing tickets for the majorly anticipated titles. The hottest ticket in town belonged to Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Oscar-hopeful “who travelled to Brazil for the first time to speak at the festival. 

Another major global star has just been added to the festival’s roster, with the Rio Film Festival and RioFilme announcing American director Spike Lee will land in Rio this week to present a special gala screening of “Highest 2 Lowest,” the same prestigious slot given to Walter Salles’ history-making “I’m Still Here” last year. RioFilme president Leonardo Edde told Variety: “To bring Spike Lee [to the festival] is more than a symbolic gesture, it’s the Rio de Janeiro City Hall promoting an encounter between world cinema and the creative potency of our city. The city is ready to take its stories to the world, but also to bring international cinema to enjoy the unique experience that is being in Rio de Janeiro.” 

The festival’s industry counterpart, RioMarket, also experienced a successful edition. The event, which features masterclasses, talks, discussions and business meetings, largely explored pressing themes such as the presence of women in the industry, the need for both national and international co-productions and positioning Brazil as an attractive destination for international shoots. Following up on Brazil as the country of honor at this year’s Marché du Film in Cannes, the RioMarket organized a series of events as part of the France-Brazil Season 2025, celebrating 200 years of diplomatic relations with a reciprocal cultural exchange between the two countries. 

Speaking with Variety during a busy final day, Rio Film Festival executive director Ilda Santiago called this edition “special” and “a celebration of Brazilian cinema.” “We saw audiences back in theaters with 150,000 moviegoers and young audiences discovering new films. On the business side, executives and new talent also played an essential role through the RioMarket. Rio is back in full fledge!”

As red carpets begin to be stripped from Rio’s cobblestone streets, here are eight takeaways from this year’s Rio Film Festival and RioMarket: 

Beyond the director’s chair: boosted female presence at the festival

Festival head Santiago is openly passionate about her mission to increase the presence of women at the festival, not only as directors but across all sectors of the industry. During one of the most popular panels at this year’s RioMarket, Santiago moderated a conversation tied to the European Film Promotion’s Europe! Voices of Women + in Film program with panellists including filmmaker Chica Andrade (“House of Hilton”), legendary Brazilian actor Betty Faria (“Bye Bye Brazil”) and “Romeria” producer Maria Zamora. During the panel, the festival executive said she felt “ashamed” of how few films directed by women were at the festival a decade ago, especially compared to the “pride” she feels now. “Today, the festival features almost 100 films directed by women, as well as having women in positions of leadership,” said the executive. The panel broached intersectionality at length, highlighting how equality should follow larger conversations on gender identity, race and class. “Women are nested within a system that is patriarchal, racist, and in need of stories that challenge these structures,” added Santiago.

RioMarket: a place for deals 

Several deals were either brokered, signed or announced during the nine days of RioMarket. Production company Estudio Escarlate launched the Sustainable Audiovisual Manual, a digital book with detailed guidelines for the reduction of the environmental impact of audiovisual productions sponsored by the Brazilian Tourism Board (Embratur). Embratur also partnered with the philanthropic organization Projeto Paradiso to launch co-production between Ron Leshem’s (“Euphoria”) Crossing Oceans and Koby Gal Raday and multi-hyphenate Santiago’s Janeiro Studios with leading Brazilian streaming platform Globoplay. The Janeiro Studios’ duo own production banner MyMama Entertainment also has several high-profile co-pros in its slate, including Benjamín Naishtat’s “Los Siete Locos” and Anita Rocha da Silveira’s follow up to “Medusa,” “Hot Blood.”

Brazil x France alliance grows strong

Following a history-making Brazilian presence in Cannes in a year where the South American country was honored at the Marché du Film, Unifrance sent a hefty delegation to Rio for both the festival and the market. Figuring amongst attendees were seasoned executives, including Goodfellas’ Antoine Guilhem, Indie Sales’ Constance Poubelle, Le Pacte’s Zadig Paloyan, MK2’s Elise Cochin, Pyramide Films’ Eric Lagesse and Pathé’s Mayalen de Croiseuil. The festival also organized the Rendez-Vous Unifrance, a roundtable with French sales agents and distributors and Brazilian exhibitors, with the goal of amplifying the French delegation’s knowledge of the Brazilian market. Brazilian attendees at RioMarket have praised the event, highlighting the importance of having meetings in their own country, where major foreign players can see the strength of local companies in their home turf. 

Bulked up international slate

For the last decade, the Rio Film Festival has competed with Mostra de São Paulo for the year’s buzziest international titles. While São Paulo brokered a deal with Netflix and will exhibit titles such as “Frankenstein” and “Jay Kelly” (Rio got Edward Berger’s “Ballad of a Small Player” and Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams,” however), audiences both in person and online have largely praised Rio as the winner of this unsanctioned battle. Santiago landed a hefty crop of Oscar hopefuls this year, spearheaded by the MUBI slate in “Sentimental Value,” “Die My Love,” and Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind” as well as eagerly awaited films in Kristen Stewart’s “The Chronology of Water,” Julia Ducornau’s “Alpha” and Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” 

Audiovisual as an economy-boosting industry

During the festival, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) announced a study showing the audiovisual industry in Brazil had a R$ 70.2 billion (US$ 13.1 billion) total impact on the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and generated a total of 608,970 direct, indirect and induced jobs, according to a just-out Oxford Economics study “The Economic Contribution of Brazil’s Audiovisual Industry in 2024.” The stats were widely shared amongst industry veterans during the festival, with “Under Pressure” director Andrucha Waddington telling Variety the numbers show how Brazilian audiovisual is “a thriving, vital industry.” Several talent-forming workshops were delivered during RioMarket, including a four-day screenplay workshop by leading Spanish-Brazilian consultant Gustavo Martinez, who taught attendees about his innovative approach based on the book “A nova metodologia do roteiro” (“A New Methodology for Screenplay”).

Solidification of genre 

While Brazil has long boasted great genre masters like Zé do Caixão, it has long been a complaint amongst the industry that the country doesn’t invest in big genre productions. This year’s festival proved that this is slowly being left in the past. Prime Video’s “Tremembé” proved a highly accomplished true crime offering, while Brazil met the vampire subgenre with Luiza Shelling Tubaldini’s stylish “Love Kills” and a Rio-set animated dystopia in Rogério Nunes’s Annecy standout “Heart of Darkness.” 

Expanding space for series 

Some of the buzziest screenings this year were not for films but for series, with Prime Video’s highly anticipated “Tremembé” and HBO Max’s “Ângela Diniz: Assassinada e Condenada” both having world premieres at the festival. “To premiere ‘Ângela Diniz’ at the Rio Film Festival has a beautiful symbolism to us,” Renata Rezende, Latin America’s general production director at Warner Bros. Discovery, told Variety. “Film festivals are spaces historically dedicated to cinema, and to see series occupying this space shows how the barriers between film and TV have become porous, especially when dealing with works of great aesthetic ambition and narrative strength.”

‘The Secret Agent’ buzz 

It became a joke on the ground: what would you do for a coveted ticket to “The Secret Agent” gala at the Odeon? The event, the most disputed of the festival, marked the Rio premiere of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s thriller and saw Wagner Moura — predicted by Variety’s very own Clayton Davis to land a Best Actor nomination — spearhead a healthy list of cast and crew at the screening. The sentiment at the event was one of great anticipation, with audiences hoping the double Cannes-winning film will continue Brazil’s tremendous momentum and make history at the Oscars to win Best International Film a year after Walter Salles’s “I’m Still Here” became the country’s first film to do so. 

Full list of Rio Film Festival award-winners below:

Première Brasil – Redentor Trophy

Best Fiction Feature: “Pequenas Criaturas,” directed by Anne Pinheiro Guimarães

Best Documentary: “Apolo,” directed by Tainá Müller and Ísis Broken

Best Short (ex aequo): “Sebastiana”, directed by Pedro de Alencar and “O Faz-Tudo,” directed by Fábio Leal

Special Jury Prize: “Cheiro de Diesel,” directed by Natasha Neri and Gizele Martins

Best Director – Feature Fiction: Rogério Nunes for “Heart of Darkness”

Best Director – Documentary: Mini Kerti, for “Dona Onete – Meu Coração Neste Pedacinho Aqui”

Best Actress:  Klara Castanho, for “#SalveRosa”

Best Actor: Gabriel Faryas, for “Ato Noturno”

Best Supporting Actress: Diva Menner, for “Ruas da Glória”

Best Supporting Actor: Alejandro Claveaux, for “Ruas da Glória”

Best Screenplay: Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon, for “Ato Noturno”

Best Editing: André Finotti, for “Honestino”

Best Cinematography: Luciana Baseggio, for “Ato Noturno”

Best Art Direction: Claudia Andrade, for “Pequenas Criaturas”

Best Costume Design: Renata Russo, for “#SalveRosa”

Best Sound: Ariel Henrique and Tales Manfrinato, for “Love Kills”

Best Soundtrack: Plínio Profeta, for “Apolo”

Première Brasil – New Trends

Best Film: “Uma em Mil,” directed by Jonatas Rubert and Tiago Rubert

Best Director: João Borges, for “Espelho Cigano” 

Special Jury Prize: Ângela Leal and Leandra Leal, for “Nada a Fazer” 

Best Actor: Márcio Vito, for “Eu Não Te Ouço”

Best Actress: Ana Flavia Cavalcante and Mawusi Tulani, for “Criadas”

Special Mention (Best Actress): Docy Moreira, for “Espelho Cigano”

Best Short: “Ponto Cego,” directed by Luciana Vieira and Marcel Beltrán

Jury – Honorary Mention- Shorts: “Os Arcos Dourados de Olinda,” directed by Douglas Henrique

Felix Awards 2025 

Best Brazilian Feature: “Night Stage,” directed by Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher

Best International Feature: “Lesbian Space Princess,” directed by Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs

Best Documentary: “Copacabana, 4 de Maio,” directed by Allan Ribeiro

Special Jury Prize  “Love Me Tender,” directed by Anna Cazenave Cambet

Audience Awards – Public Vote

Best Fiction Feature: #SalveRosa,” directed by Susanna Lira

Best Documentary: “Cheiro de Diesel,” directed by Natasha Neri and Gizele Martins.

Best Film – New Trends: “Herança de Narcisa,” directed by Clarissa Appelt and Daniel Dias