Brazil is represented at the Venice Film Festival this year through "Retorno a Buenos Aires" (Return to Buenos Aires), an Italian-Brazilian coproduction that had its world premiere on Friday, September 11. The film is competing for the festival's top honor, the Golden Lion.
Representing Brazil on the red carpet were producers Patrick de Jongh, Cibele Amaral and André Ristum, along with actors Paula Cohen and Eduardo Hoy. Also present in Venice were Chilean-Italian director Marco Bechis and actor Adriano Giannini.
Filming in Brazil and Italy
The movie was produced by the Brazilian company 34 Filmes. It was shot over four weeks in Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, and a further three weeks in Turin, in northern Italy.
The story follows Mariano Guerra, an Italian doctor played by Adriano Giannini, who is summoned back to an Argentine court after 33 years to testify in the trial of former military officers who kidnapped and tortured him during Argentina's dictatorship. Paula Cohen plays judge Desideria Losada, while Eduardo Hoy portrays a younger version of Mariano.
A personal story for the director
The plot closely mirrors the life of director Marco Bechis, who was himself a political prisoner during Argentina's military dictatorship, a period between 1976 and 1983 marked by widespread forced disappearances and torture of dissidents. That personal history gives the film a testimonial quality.
In a statement, Bechis said that with "Retorno a Buenos Aires" he was returning to Argentina 50 years later, carrying a story that was not his own but that grew out of a wound he knew well. He said he too had been kidnapped during the Argentine dictatorship, though the character of Mariano was not based directly on him.
He added that a question had stayed with him for years: what it means to survive, not simply to save oneself but to keep living when others could not. He said the film, at its core, was about one thing, the guilt of the survivor, which endures.
The Venice Film Festival, held annually on the Lido, is the world's oldest film festival and one of the industry's most prestigious, with the Golden Lion as its highest award.
