Berlin-based Black Forest Films has embarked on “Milk Powder,” the next film by rising Brazilian talent Carlos Segundo, shortlisted for an Oscar for his short film “Sideral.”
“Milk Powder” is selected to participate in the Script Station Lab of the Berlin Film Festival. Directed by Christoph and Josune Hahnheiser, Black Forest joins Segundo’s O Sopro do tempo and France’s Les Valseurs as co-producers. “Milk Powder” will be Les Valseurs’ second collaboration with the Black Forest after Fernando Dominguez’s feature-length documentary “Los nombres propios,” which begins shooting in a month’s time, said Les Valseurs producer Justin Pechberty. The project has also obtained development support from the Hubert Bals Fund.
more than variety
In “Milk Powder”, Segundo “deploys a wandering cinema, dotted with rock hits and absurd humor”, says the synopsis. He follows Vicente, an aspiring rocker, in his search for love and, above all, for the meaning of life. His own personal crisis exemplifies a generation of Brazilians struggling with their own existential crisis, exacerbated by the rise of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018.
O Sopro do tempo and Les Valseurs have collaborated on four other projects in the past, including Segundo’s feature “Fendas” (“Slits”) and the most recent shorts, “From Time to Time, I Burn”, “Big Bang” , which snagged the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival last year, and his latest short film, “Sideral”, among the 15 on the 2023 Oscars shortlist for Best Live Action Short Film.
“Sideral” premiered at Cannes and Telluride and has won as many as 65 awards, including at Chicago, Palm Springs, Hollyshorts and LA Shorts. It is the only South American short on the Oscar list this year.
Not unlike his other shorts, “Sideral” (which means outer space in English) has an absurd story. It centers on a couple, she a cleaning lady and he a mechanic, whose lives are turned upside down when Brazil sends its first manned rocket into space.
Said Karim Aïnouz, whose Cannes Un Certain Regard winner “Invisible Life” represented Brazil at the 2020 Oscars: “The success of ‘Sideral’ is very important for Brazilian cinema, at a time when our country has just out of four years of physical and economic suffering. symbolic violence of the extreme right, particularly against culture”.
“And seeing a young filmmaker like Carlos who never stopped making movies, with or without money, telling stories that make us dream, gives us all the energy to keep making movies, to keep reimagining the world,” he said. VarietyHe added: “His film is marvelous in every way, unique in its way and carried by a beautiful and original script, with an ending you won’t forget.”
Nominations for the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24, while the Oscars ceremony will take place on Sunday, March 12.
The best of the variety
Subscribe to the variety newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Click here to read the full article.