Netflix Brazil is expected to announce its largest originals slate in line with the announced growth in Japan, Korea and Japan. This Tuesday’s announcement will be fueled by 40 titles being developed in 2022.
New banner shows are included “Todo Dia a Mesma Noite,”A limited series drama based on the true story about the 2013 nightclub Boate Kiss fire that left 242 people dead. Delivered in five episodes, the series is adapted from Daniela Arbex’s eponymous novel, with the author set to serve as a creative consultant on the show.
Morena Filmes will produce. Shooting will begin in the early 2022. Award-winning filmmaker Gustavo Lipsztein (“Dead in the Water”Julia Rezende (with ) heads the writing team.“A Boyfriend for My Wife”) directing.
Further new titles in Netflix’s 2022-23 production slate will be unveiled this morning at a virtual event, More Brazil on Screen, designed to debate growth opportunities and challenges for Netflix and the Brazilian TV-film industry.
Reed Hastings (CEO Netflix), VP Latin American Content Francisco Ramos and Elisabetta Zenatti (VP Brazilian Content) will be speaking. They will also be addressing Academy Award nominees Fernando Meirelles (Academy Award).“City of God”Carlos Saldanha (“Ferdinand”).
Brazil has seen a strong Netflix expansion. The U.S streamers have provided life rafts for the local business whose once-fulsome incentives have been slowed down to a glacial speed under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
There are many ways that Netflix is poised to grow. Zenatti is a former TV producer and she took up her position at Netflix in august.
Zenatti stated that Netflix is moving into many different genres and will soon release its first Brazilian action movie in 2022. “Carga Maxima,”The first local dramedy. “Maldives,”Set in Barra da Tijuca, a prestigious suburb of Rio.
Elsewhere, Netflix’s recent or 2022 scripted releases range, Zenatti noted, from “soapy drama” (“So Se For por Amor”) to comedies featuring local talent such as Whindersson Nunes, Rodrigo Sant’Anna and Leandro Hassum; thrillers, such as the just-announced psychological thriller “Olhar indiscreto” starring Deborah Nascimiento (“Brazil Avenue”); and a bevy of YA shows, led by “Sintonia.”
One of Netflix’s biggest Brazilian original series hits to date, “Sintonia” delivers a vision of teen life in Sao Paulo’s outer radius slums, which proves a potent mix of funk, drug crime, and the Evangelical church. Season 2 ended on October 27.
You can also check out other Netflix originals. “7 Prisoners,”Rodrigo Santoro stars as the Persian King Xerxes “300,” “Invisible City,”The first live action title in the series. “Ice Age” creator Carlos Saldanha.
In “7 Prisoners,”Four country boys are brought to Sao Paulo by their fathers to work in squalid conditions at a scrapyard (Santoro). Tuesday’s More Brazil on Screen marks Netflix’s first five years of original production: “3%,” the country’s first Netflix original – and the streamer’s second full foreign-language title after Mexico’s “Club of Crows” – was released on Nov. 25, 2016.
“What we’ve learnt from consumer reactions is that Brazilians love to see themselves on screen, seeing really Brazilian characters they can relate to, and not a stereotyped reality. It doesn’t matter if titles touch upon a crueler reality: That’s society,” Zenatti said.
“Sintonia”Los Bragas produced it. “7 Prisoners” by Meirelles’ O2 Filmes, “3%”Boutique Filmes “Invisible City” by Prodigo, all repeat Netflix producers based out of São Paulo.
Netflix is broadening its horizons. “It’s really very, very important to us to really focus on very, very local content in Brazil,” Zenatti said.
“And when we say very local content, we mean all of Brazil, because Brazil is a continent. It’s a huge country. And every region, every state in Brazil – we have 27 – has its own culture,”She continued. “So now our goal is really to expand to all the regions of Brazil, and have different voices in terms of writing, creating, directing, acting and producing. This is our big focus.”
It is already happening. Halder Gomes, the director of stand-up comedy specials “Edmilson Filho: Notas, uma Comédia de Relacionamentos,” hails from Fortaleza, in Northeastern Brazil; Ana Luísa Azevedo, director of “Só Se For Por Amor,”This is Porto Alegre in the furthest south.
Daniela Arbex is the author of the noon-fiction novel. “Todo Dia a Mesma Noite”It is located in Minas Gerais, central Brazil. Boate Kiss, however, is located in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state. Arbex’s book is the most inclusive account of what happened on that night in 2013, with the author having interviewed more than 100 locals who were connected to the tragedy. Zenatti claims that this type of narrative provenance in Brazil is exactly what Netflix wants.
Her explanation was that to reach out to Brazil, you need to bring on a new generation. She cited the local writing talent and the diversity of the talent. “Todo Dia a Mesma Noite.”
Netflix is also improving its production standards. In September, Netflix released its first multicamera sitcom, mother in-law comedy. “A Sogra.”
It’s also mixing it up, blending genres. “7 Prisoners” is a social issue thriller, noting how Sao Paulo’s modern economy depends on illegal sweatshop labor. “Maldives”This film combines mystery, intrigue, and acid humor with strong Brazilian actors.