Brazilian and French producers discussed co-productions on a panel at Festival do Rio’s RioMarket industry programme on Thursday (October 8) and outlined the benefits and occasional pitfalls of working with each other.
The French Teacher, a psychological thriller that screened later in the day in the Première Brasil section, was the case study and centres on a teacher who gets targeted by religious fanatics over her same-sex relationship.
Directed by Ricard Alves Jr., the feature accessed incentives and benefits through the Brazilian-French bilateral co-production agreement and Aide aux Cinémas du Monde, a co-production grant managed by CNC and Institut Français. It is 45% Brazilian (Filmes de Plástico and Entrefilmes), 30% French (Les Valseurs), and 25% Portuguese (Karõ Filmes).
“Working with our French partners, we ended up focusing even more on the script,’’ producer Thiago Macedo of Belo Horizonte-based Filmes de Plástico said. But he pointed out that this was an expensive partnership for Brazilians. “Salaries and taxes in France are very high. You can’t expect to be able to do in Euros in France what you could do, with that money converted into Reais, in Brazil.”
Cannes dreams
However the appeal for a Brazilian producer was clear. “With a French partner, there’s a better chance the film will be selected for Cannes. All the Brazilian films that have gone to Cannes in the last years have been co-productions with them,” Macedo said, citing Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent (2025) and Karim Aïnouz’s Motel Destino (2024), among others. Still, nothing is guaranteed: The French Teacher premiered in San Sebastian.
“Our partnership with Brazil began when we met filmmaker João Paulo Miranda Maria, with whom we made the short film Meninas Formicida [2017],” Charles Audinet of Les Valseurs said. Maria has just finished shooting another co-production in France with Les Valseurs, the feature I Don’t Even Know Who I Was, about a Brazilian filmmaker in Paris grieving the loss of his wife and daughter.
The Brazilian production company in this case was MyMama Entertainment. Based in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, it has 10 co-productions with France underway. “France is a natural partner for us because they understand Brazilian cinema. They work a lot with us on creative development, helping to universalise our stories,” said co-founder and CEO Mayra Faour Auad.
MyMama is developing with France’s Gaijin a €3m film from Pia Marais, who shot Transamazonia in Brazil in 2024, that goes by the working title White Lies. “In the last four years, Brazil has been a great territory for cinema, with a pool of talents when we are talking about directors and producers. And they are putting all their energy and resources into making films happen,’’ Sophie Erbs of Gaijin Productions said.
Historically, Argentina is Brazil’s most frequent co-production partner and according to the latest report from the national film agency Ancine published in August, the county collaborated with Brazil on 34 co-productions from 2016 to 2025. Second on the list was Portugal on 31, followed by France on 17 co-productions.
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