Published in 10/06/2016

For the third year, the Rio Film Festival 2016 will again present its Felix awards given to the best LGBT films in the festival. This year, out of the 250 films presented, 28 are eligible to compete for the awards. Reflecting cultural change, two years ago the curators of the Gay Section felt the need to integrate the films in this category amongst all the other sections, finishing with the tradition Gay Section and creating instead the Felix Award.

The films with LGBT content will be scrutinized by a jury whose members this year are: Gilson Packer, General Manager of CineSESC and also coordinates the Tchorfland Project, which will deal with 20 years of LGBT activism in São Paulo; Katia Adler, filmmaker and producer of the Brazilian Film Festival in Paris since1999 and festivals in Toronto and Montreal; and Milton Cunha, journalist and international carnival director and commentator at TV Globo.

The awards will be presented during the closing awards ceremony on the evening of Sunday 16th October.

The awards ceremony will also see international model Lea T. receive the second Suzy Capó award as Felix ‘Personality of the Year’. This special award was bestowed for the first time last year and was specially created in the name of beloved Festival do Rio programmer and original creator of the Felix prize, Suzy Capó, who passed away suddenly in 2015.

From the 28 films in this edition that in some way represent queer culture the  jury will choose the best narratives in documentary or fiction. That is, the Felix Award sets out to recognize the films that have the highest quality, not that are the most gay.

In Latin the word ‘felix’ means, originally, ‘fertile’ or ‘fecund’. Later, due to a metaphorical extension of its meaning, ‘felix’ became a synonym for ‘fortunate’, ‘joyful’, ‘satisfied’ and ‘happy’. The definition and its evolution, from fruitful to realized, is what the jury will be searching for here.

Says a spokesperson for the Festival:  “It’s important to remember that this cultural change is not reflected so clearly in the social and political sphere. Homophobia still exists with aspects of cruelty in Brazil and in other parts of the world. Ignorance in times of instant information sometimes seems to be growing not diminishing, and the approval of LGBT rights is a highly urgent issue in national politics. It is exactly for this reason that the new ways of seeing and conveying what it is today to be gay, lesbian, trans or queer, need to reach a higher number of spectators. No one is just one thing. And this is the best thing of all.”


The 28 films pre-selected for consideration for this year's first Felix Award are:


PREMIERE BRASIL

Demônia - Melodrama em 3 atos (Demônia - A Melodrama in 3 Acts)

by Cainan Baladez and Fernanda Chicolet, (Brazil)

Divinas Divas (Divine Divas)by Leandra Leal. (Brazil)

Entre os Homens de Bem (The Stranger in the House), by Caio Cavechini

& Carlos Juliano Barros. (Brazil)

Fala comigo (The Other End), by Felipe Sholl. (Brazil)

Intolerância.doc. (Intolerance.doc), by Susanna Lira. (Brazil)

Janaína Overdrive by Mozart Freire. (Brazil)

Love Snaps (by Daniel Ribeiro & Rafael Lessa. (Brazil)

Waiting for B. by Paulo Cesar Toledo & Abigail Spindel. (Brazil)

Xale (Shawl), by Douglas Soares, (Brazil/Armenia)


PANORAMA

It’s Only the End of the World(É apenas o fim do mundo),dir. Xavier Dolan (Canada/France)

The Woman Who Left (A mulher que se foi), dir. Lav Diaz. (Philippines)

Staying Vertical (Na vertical), by Alain Guiraudie. (France)

Nobody Wants the Night (Noite sem fim), by Isabel Coixet. (France/Spain/Bulgaria)

Being 17 (Quand on a 17 ans) by André Téchiné. (France)


EXPECTATIVA

Closet Monster (O monstro no armário), by Stephen Dunn. (Canada)

Spa Night, by Andrew Ahn. (US)

Tomcat (Kater) by Händl Klaus (Austria)

 Les Vies de Thérèse (As vidas de Thérèse) by Sébastien Lifshitz (France)


PREMIERE LATINA

Estranha (Rara) by Pepa San Martín (Argentina/Chile)

A região selvage (La Region Salvaje) by Amat Escalante. (Mexico)


MIDNIGHT

Boys In the Trees (Os garotos nas árvores) by Nicholas Verso.(Australia)

Raw (Grave)byJulia Ducournau. (France)


MIDNIGHT DOCS

Helmut Berger, Actor, by Andreas Horvath (Austria)

Kiki, by Sara Jordenö (Switzerland/US)

Strike a Pose, by Ester Gould (Holland/Belgium)


ITINERÁRIOS ÚNICOS

Author: The JT Leroy Story (JT Leroy - A história de um autor) byJeff Feuerzeig. (US)

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, by Fenton Bailey. (US/Germany)

Maya Angelou and Still I Rise (Maya Angelou, e ainda resisto) by Bob Hercules, Rita Coburn Whack. (US)




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