RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL — Rio2C, Latin America’s largest creativity occasion, will collect from May 27 to June 1 in its sixth in-person version, boasting a document attendance of about 52,000 contributors and 483 executives from 39 international locations.
The steady progress of the occasion, which this 12 months has “The Edge of Perfection” as its central theme, is a mirrored image of the power of the movie and TV and inventive business in Rio, believes Rafael Lazarini, CEO of Rio2C.
The metropolis is the headquarters of South America’s largest broadcaster and telenovela producer, Grupo Globo, and historically the nation’s principal middle of indie movie manufacturing – the birthplace of the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies Cinema Novo motion of auteurs akin to Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos and Caca Diegues.
Tradition, the focus of skills and town’s sights, mixed with authorities insurance policies, paved the best way for the constructing of a robust manufacturing sector in Rio. According to a research of Rio’s City Hall, the options produced by Rio’s firms accounted for 70% of the B.O. and 71% of the ticket gross sales in Brazil within the 1995 to 2024 interval. Last 12 months, in keeping with the research, the share of Rio-produced pics rose to 90% of the whole Brazil’s B.O. and 88% of the whole ticket gross sales, a development that continued this 12 months.
The robust theatrical efficiency of two pics contributed for the current rise of Rio’s B.O. and attendance share: Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here,” this 12 months’s Best International Feature Film Oscar winner, was launched in Brazil Nov. 7, 2024, and “O Auto da Compadecida 2,” helmed by Guel Arraes and Flavia Lacerda, opened Dec. 25, 2024.
“We can draw a parallel with the U.S., where New York City is the big business and financial center, while L.A. is the world’s capital of film and TV. In Brazil, Sao Paulo is the economic center and Rio concentrates the bulk of the creative industry. Rio is Brazil’s L.A., the main center of film and TV production in our country,” Lazarini advised Variety.
The Mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, is anticipated to attend Rio2C 2025 to announce a package deal of incentives to Rio firms totalling 131 million reais ($23 million), of which the federal authorities will account for 100 million reais ($17.5 million) and City Hall with 31 million reais ($5.4 million). The coin will fund the manufacturing of pics and sequence, exhibitors, fests and coaching packages.
Mayor Paes advised Variety that City Hall may also announce in Rio2C a Film Friendly Seal, which Rio’s movie company RioFilme and the Rio Convention & Visitors Bureau will grant to dependable companies on the town that offer companies and items to worldwide movie and TV manufacturing.
City authorities are satisfied the pure beauties of Rio, its energetic tradition and other people’s variety make it a beautiful location not just for Brazilian productions, but in addition for those of international firms.
Paes careworn to Variety that his administration created in 2022 a money rebate to international producers lensing in Rio. The City reimburses worldwide producers’ of as much as 35% of eligible bills, in keeping with the anticipated constructive influence of the manufacturing on Rio’s economic system and picture.
In parallel, RioFilme streamlined Rio’s Film Commission which facilitates the manufacturing of movies, sequence, TV exhibits – together with telenovelas of TV Globo and TV Record – and advert commercials, serving to producers to dodge forms and different obstacles.
Rio’s Film Commission approved a complete of 8,782 lensing days in Rio in 2024, up from 7,885 in 2023 and seven,498 in 2022, in keeping with RioFilme.
“We are one of the most filmed cities in the world. In 2023, we passed Paris and Mexico City in terms of total shooting days. In 2024, we had 505 productions here, of which 27 were foreign,” Paes advised Variety. “Rio’s film and TV industry grossed 4.2 billion reais ($736 million) in 2023, up 68% in relation to 2019.”
Warner’s “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” produced by Legendary Pictures, and Universal’s “Fast X,” from the “Fast & Furious” franchise, head the record of worldwide productions lensed in Rio in recent times.
An impediment for the growth of the manufacturing sector in Rio, mentioned Leonardo Edde, president director of RioFilme, was the dearth of recent studios. TV Globo and TV Record have top-notch studios in Rio, however they’re devoted to the in-house manufacturing of the broadcasters’ telenovelas and different exhibits.
Indie producers needed to resort to Polo Rio Cine Video, a fancy of seven studios constructed by City Hall by 1988, or to small studios unfold round city or to go to São Paulo. Polo Rio was an vital mission, but it surely didn’t obtain sufficient funding, public or personal, for a few years, and the studios have been outdated.
“Due to the lack of legal certainty, private companies were not willing to invest in Polo Rio. Renting contracts were standard ones, and allowed the City to evict companies renting studios within 30 days of notice,” Edde advised Variety. “So Mayor Paes, as soon as he took office in 2021, put together a public bid to select a company to manage Polo Rio for 30 years.”
Sao Paulo-based studio and post-production group Quanta gained the bid to the 30-year concession, which could be renewed for a further 30 years. Marcelo Pedrazzi, a Quanta associate, advised Variety they took over the administration of Polo Rio in July 2022 and have already invested in it about half of the 92 million reais (US$ 16 million) established of their concession settlement.
The first step was to assemble a brand new state-or-art studio to accommodate on the finish of 2023 the manufacturing of Amazon Prime Time’s “O Auto da Compadecida 2,” made by Rio’s Conspiracao and H2O. The pic’s setting of Brazil’s Northeast drylands was recreated within the studio, which hosted 98% of the lensing, mentioned Pedrazzi.
Quanta has already constructed two different studios and renovated two outdated ones. It plans to have a complete of 15 totally operational studios in Polo Rio by March 2026, he mentioned.
“As Kevin Costner said in ‘Field of Dreams’, ‘If you build it, he will come,’ ‘he’ meaning the producers,” Pedrazzi advised Variety. “Sao Paulo leads in terms of advertising production. But, when it comes to entertainment, films and series, Rio is the largest market. Everybody wants to shoot in Rio.”
Rio’s plans for the artistic business are formidable. The Mayor has submitted to Rio’s City Council a proposal for the creation of a Creative District in Barra, not removed from Cidade das Artes, the place Rio2C takes place.
Inspired by the Creative District in Madrid, the one in Rio will englobe an enormous space that encompasses Globo’s Burbank-like manufacturing advanced, TV Record’s studios, Polo Rio and different smaller studios, together with those within the metropolis’s principal conference middle, Riocentro.
At the District’s middle, in a big space that hosted the majority of the Rio’s 2016 Summer Olympics’ occasions, the thought is to construct a theme park, a resort, the Olympics Museum, a tower with places of work, an ice skating rink, a theater and an space to host the Rock in Rio music fest editions each two years.
As in Polo Rio, City Hall will choose a non-public firm to handle the advanced for 30 years, the mayor mentioned.
“Rio has a lot to profit from this project. The complex will generate 143,000 direct and indirect jobs in the 30 years of concession,” Paes advised Variety.