Bruno Ribeiro, one of the foremost filmmakers of his young Brazilian generation, a 2022 Berlin Silver Bear winner for short “Sunday Morning” and co-scribe on Globoplay major hit “The Others,” has been selected for Cannes Critics’ Week Next Step workshop.
The selection will be announced Saturday at this year’s Rio Film Festival by Cannes Critics’ Week Program Manager Thomas Rosso, also the Next Step workshops director. The invitation is supported by philanthropic org Projeto Paradiso, backed by the Olga Rabinovich Institute and a consistent champion of Brazilian talent and its international projection.
Ribeiro broke out with 2021 DocLisboa winner “Gargau,” a jocular semi-autobiographical comedy in which Ribeiro, playing a fictional portrait of himself, visits his grandmother in Gargau, a six hours drive up the coast from Rio de Janeiro.
A deft portrait of Brazil’s first rural generation that moved in mass to study at big city universities, it was followed up by “Sunday Morning,” a 2022 Berlin Silver Bear Jury Prize winner In it, Gabriella, a young Black pianist played by real-life musician Raquel Paixao, is preparing for her first major recital. Troubled by dreams of her dead mother, she revisits the countryside family home, out of a sense of guilt but also to thank her mother for helping her to get to where she is now. The short ends with Gabriella/Paixoa’s stunning rendition of Chopin’s “Fantasie Impromptu.
Ribeiro, who was featured in Variety’s “Brazil: 10 Next Gen Talents to Track,” will now attend Next Step with debut feature project “Saturday in Copacabana,” produced by Rio-based Reduto Filmes, founded in 2021 by Adler Costa, Ribeiro, Laís Diel e Tuanny Medeiros. The film is described as following the nocturnal and existential wanderings of a young pianist at a crossroads in her personal and professional life, as she drifts through the city’s bars, clubs, and samba circles.
“’Saturday in Copacabana’ will echo some of the same concerns as ‘Sunday Morning.’ Both share a dialogue between the personal, the professional, and the artistic, but this new piece is imagined as a livelier, more humorous, and playful setting. While ‘Sunday Morning’ leaned into introspection, with this project I want to expand toward a more collective energy,” Ribeiro told Variety.
“Sunday Morning” was noted for its precise use of fixed shots and gentle camera movement.
“With Saturday in Copacabana,’ I want to explore a more dynamic visual language,” Ribeiro anticipated. “My intention is to embrace greater movement to mirror the energy of Copacabana, while also engaging in a dialogue with both the screwball comedy tradition of Hollywood and the Brazilian chanchada comedies, with their musicality, irony and vitality. Of course, there will still be moments of stillness, but overall I imagine the flow to be faster and more unpredictable.”
Next Step, Brazil and the World
The full selection for Next Step looks set to be announced in early December. Aimed at aiding filmmakers in making the transition from shorts to feature films, Critics’ Week has already bulked up in recent years on Brazilian features, selecting in its lineup “Baby” by Marcelo Caetano, a critical and sales hit which won a Roederer Revelation Award for Ricardo Teodoro in 2024, “Power Alley” by Lillah Halla, a Fipresci Prize winner in 2023 , and the short films “Samba Infinito” by Leonardo Martinelli and “The Girl and the Pot” by Valentina Homem. Recent Brazilian movies making the Next Step Cut take in “Memory House” by Joao Paulo Miranda, “Power Alley,” and “Sweet River” by Fellipe Fernandes.
Over one week at Next Step, filmmakers are advised by international consultants on writing, marketing and scoring music for film and can make contact with production companies, international sales agents, and distributors during curated industry meetings.
In 11 editions, Next Step has welcomed 97 filmmakers of 39 different nationalities. 38 feature films have been produced and presented at major festivals, it reports, most recently this year “Aisha Can’t Fly Away” by Morad Mostafa, which played Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, “The Visitor” by Vytautas Katkus, a best director award winner Karlovy Vary, “Don’t Let Me Die,” a standout at Locarno, “Gorgona,” by Evi Kalogiropoulou, chosen for Venice Critics Week, Lucía Aleñar Iglesias’ “Forastera,” a TIFF Fipresci Prize laureate, and “Aro berria,” by Irati Gorostidi Agirretxe, selected for San Sebastián’s prestigious New Directors’ strand.
Next Step is backed by France’s CNC, SACEM, Copie Privée, and SACD as well as Mexico’s Morelia International Film Festival and now Brazil’s Projeto Paradiso.
