Sao Paulo Film Festival Opens With Stanley Kubrick Exhibit

"Stanley would be so pleased about all the attention he is getting," said the famed director's widow, Christine Kubrick, who attended the event's opening ceremony.

SAO PAULO -- The 37th edition of the Sao Paulo International Film Festival kicked off on Thursday night at the Ibirapuera Auditorium with Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, winner of the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes this year

The fest, which runs from Oct. 17-31, will pay tribute to famed director Stanley Kubrick, whose work will be exhibited for the first time in Latin America. The tribute to the director's work will include an exhibit at the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS), a book launch, and a retrospective of his films.

Kubrick’s widow Christine Kubrick and his brother-in-law Jan Harlan attended the opening ceremony. “Stanley would be so pleased about all the attention he is getting, he would be rather horrified to see me making a speech,” joked Kubrick.

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Renata de Almeida, executive director of the fest, said she wanted to bring the Kubrick’s exhibition to Brazil since she saw it in Berlin in 2005, but at that time it was too expensive. “The exhibition is genial, is very creative and has something very playful about it, it is very accessible, even if you don’t know Kubrick’s art, you will enjoy it,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

Harlan even joked about the way Stanley would feel. "I imagine and I fantasize Stanley Kubrick looking down on us, he would see himself all over town in a painting by his wife. ‘A retrospective of all my films in Sao Paulo? And an exhibit of my work at MIS, the museum of image and sound? And Warner Bros. and all the studios supporting me? I must be dreaming’," he said to the laughing audience.

The 37th edition of the fest will screen more than 350 titles from different countries in more than 20 venues, including theaters, cultural centers and museums across the city of Sao Paulo. More than 80 Brazilian feature films will be presented in the competitive sections of Retrospectives, Special Presentation, International Perspective and New Directors Competition.

The Mostra is also paying tribute to the works of Brazilian director Eduardo Coutinho and Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz. Ettore Scola and Hector Babenco will also be presented with a Leon Cakoff prize.

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This year, the forum “The Movies of My Life”, which gathers testimonials from artists and personalities on the films that exerted some influence in their lives, includes names such as Walter Salles, Júlio Bressane, actress Leandra Leal, and French critic Michel Ciment, among others.

On this edition, the festival will focus on two countries, Korea and Argentina, with a debate panel and the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), a co-production between Brazil and South Korea, with representatives of KOFIC -- the agency that promotes Korean cinema -- and ANCINE.

“The festival is a propitious moment and the city is a propitious place not only to discuss cinema but to make cinema,” said Almeida about the co-productions between Brazil and South Korea. “I think that our professionals has a lot to hear about their model of work, so this exchange is always great.”

The 37th edition of the festival ends on Oct. 31 with a screening of Ettore Scola’s How Strange to be Named Federico, Scola Narrates Fellini, landing precisely on the 20th anniversary of Fellini’s death.