Festival do Rio
The 12th Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival
Rio International Film Festival 2009
The 11th Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival (Festival do Rio), which is headquartered in the historic heart of the city at the Centro Cultural da Ação da Cidadania, took place from Thursday 24 September through Thursday 8 October 2009.
Screening around 310 films from 60 countries at 25 venues across the city, Festival do Rio opened with the Latin American premiere of Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock. Guests of honour on the festival’s opening night included the legendary French actress, Jeanne Moreau, and the director, Agnès Varda, as well as the Mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, and many Brazilian celebrities. Moreau also opened Festival do Rio’s Focus on France which celebrated a year of intense French cultural activity in Brazil.
Festival do Rio 2009, will also be remembered by its guests for coinciding with the news that the city of Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympic Games. With the commitment of the Governor of the State of Rio, Sérgio Cabral, and the Mayor of the City of Rio, Eduardo Paes, to support the film and audiovisual industries in the city and state, there were many reasons for Brazilian and international filmmakers to smile during the festival.
Première Brasil: The Best of Brazil
Première Brasil, which has as its festival home the Odeon Petrobras in downtown Rio de Janeiro, is the heart of Festival do Rio and the best annual global showcase of contemporary Brazilian cinema. The films in Première Brasil are presented in three programs: features, documentaries and shorts, and includes films in competition and hors concours.
Première Brasil is the only competitive section of Festival do Rio with jury awards presented on the festival's closing night. Three highly prized audience awards are also bestowed on the best Brazilian feature film, best documentary and best short film.
The 2009 Première Brasil included eleven feature films, seven feature length documentaries and 15 shorts. A further three features and three documentary features screened hors concours. In total Première Brasil screened 60 new Brazilian productions in 2009, most of which were having their world premieres in Rio.
