SP International Film Festival Honors Spain, Karmitz

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – The 38th edition of the SP International Film Festival starts today in São Paulo and during fourteen days 345 films will be shown in 35 venues around the city. This year’s festival will highlight productions from Spain and some of its directors as well as honoring producer Marin Karmitz.

The films for the festival are divided into five categories: international perspectives, retrospectives, special presentations, Brazilian films and new directors – the competitive section of the festival. Among the highlights of this year’s showings are Turist by Ruben Östlund, one of the favorites to be included in this year’s Oscar Foreign Film category.

Also big draws are Clouds of Sils Maria, by Olivier Assayas; and Palm D’Or Cannes Festival Winner Winter Sleep by Kis Uykusu. For the retrospective on Spain and its directors the festival is showing several films by Pedro Almodovar, Victor Erice and two classics by Luis Buñel: Un Chien Andalou and L’Age D’Or.

The festival this year is also paying tribute to producer, director and film distributor Marin Karmitz and with more than thirty films he produced and/or directed, including Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Three Color Trilogy, Francois Truffaut’s Antoine et Colette and the Taviani brothers’ La Notte di San Lorenzo.

The one hundred years of Charlie Chaplin’s character The Tramp, is being remembered by the festival this year with the showing of Chaplin’s last silent film The Circus in an outdoor event on November 1st in the Ibirapuera Park. The film will be accompanied by the São Paulo Municipal Theatre Foundation Orchestra and is free to the public.

Among the judges for the competitive segment of the festival are Kazakhstan’s Emir Baigazin, Iran’s Mania Akbari, the Director Revelation winner of the 31st edition Venezuela’s Mariana Rondon, Danish filmmaker Marianne Slot, Brazil’s Murilo Salles and France’s N.T. Binh.

In the segment of Brazilian films, the festival will show thirty-five films produced this year and not yet shown in São Paulo. Among them A Historia da Eternidade, A Vida Privada dos Hipopótamos and A Viagem de Yoani

For the complete list of films, theaters, screening times, and additional festival programs and events see the festival’s official website here.