“Frogs” a film produced by Linhardt under the label of Gamaros Films of Fellipe Barbosa’s label, has received support from Brazil’s main deferral government fund the Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual. In additions, it has co-production credits with Canal Brasil and Telecine.
Figa Films has snapped up international sales rights to “Frogs,” (“Os Sapos,”) by Clara Linhart. Her previous film “Domingo,” (2018), co-directed with Fellipe Barbosa, premiered at the 75th Venice Festival in Venice Days.
Sandro Fiorin, co-founder of FiGa Films told Variety: “We have admired Clara’s work for a long time and it’s a privilege to collaborate with her and the team in Brazil. Her film, though comedy at moments, feels like a pressure chamber in an idyllic paradise – leaving us totally breathless.”
This film is centered on a woman in her thirties. She is supposedly invited to an old friend’s get-together at a country house, which turns out to be not a get-together anymore. Instead, she spends her weekend with two couples in partial crisis. Paula is played by Thalita Carauta, who put in an award-winning turn in “Narcos” director Fernando Coimbra’s searing feature debut “A Wolf at The Door,” a Horizontes Latinos winner at San Sebastian.
Linhardt says, ‘I am not interested in portraying women as victims and men as monsters, but in identifying complementary neuroses that are common to so many couples.’ Her character carries the audience with her as what could have been an idyllic getaway thrusts demands on her to be an agony aunt, diffuse tension, thwart advances of friendship, and more.
These goals from the director are complimented by a well-written screenplay from Renata Mizrahi (“Amores de Chumbo”).
It’s a festival that has brought success previously, with her first feature, “La Manuela,” winning the best doc prize there in 2017. FiGa and Linhardt will no doubt be encouraged by the jury and audience win at the pix-in-post strand of the 26th Festival Audiovisual do Mercosul.
