Globo's Film Division Takes On 'Macacos': A Play That Helped Reopen a Killing Case
Estúdios Globo will produce a feature film adaptation of 'Macacos,' the award-winning stage monologue by Brazilian actor Clayton Nascimento, with shooting set for 2027. Amauri Soares, director of TV Globo and Estúdios Globo, announced the project at the Gramado Film Festival, speaking to Variety.
'Macacos' began as a one-man show — written and performed by Nascimento, a Paulistano actor who has toured Brazil for nearly a decade with the piece, reflecting on racism. The play won the Shell and APCA awards, two of Brazil's most respected theatre prizes. The son of a manicure and a plumber, both from the northeastern state of Piauí, Nascimento built the monologue around a Black man's reflections on episodes of racial violence, according to O Globo.
The film adapts a segment of the play that addresses a real case. On April 2, 2015, ten-year-old Eduardo de Jesus Ferreira was sitting at the entrance of his home in Complexo do Alemão, a favela in Rio de Janeiro, when he was struck by a rifle bullet during a police operation. His mother, Terezinha Maria de Jesus, spent years seeking accountability. The investigation was closed. In 2023, a lawyer who had seen Nascimento's play began representing her, and the case was reopened.
On June 26 of this year, the Rio de Janeiro State Public Prosecutor's Office formally charged two police officers with aggravated homicide in Eduardo's death. The indictment states the boy was shot in the back from a distance of about four metres.
Mariana Jaspe wrote the screenplay under the supervision of Jaqueline Souza, with Nascimento serving as consultant. Production details beyond the 2027 shoot window have not been disclosed.
Alongside 'Macacos,' Estúdios Globo announced a second project: the telefilm 'Os Tatuyos' ('The Tatuyos'), a comedy about a young surfer from Rio named Vinícius who falls in love with Paigô, an Indigenous woman he sees in a viral video shot in a Tatuyo village in the Amazon rainforest. Daniela Ocampo and Luiza Yabrudi created the story; Angélica Campos wrote the screenplay. Estúdios Globo is producing the film with Artrupe Produções, and it is due to lens in the second half of 2026.
Globo will release 'Os Tatuyos' on one of three platforms: its streaming service Globoplay, its pay-TV channel Telecine, or its free-to-air network TV Globo. The platform choice has not yet been finalised.
Globo created Estúdios Globo in 2023 to make telefilms for its streaming, pay-TV and broadcast outlets. The division has produced 21 films in three years — 11 of them in 2026 alone. Globo fully finances these films without tapping Brazilian production incentives, the state-backed tax credits that underpin much of the country's independent cinema.
In a separate step toward theatrical release, Globo and Paris Filmes announced at the Cannes Film Festival an agreement for Paris Filmes to distribute selected Estúdios Globo features in Brazilian cinemas. Marcio Fraccaroli, CEO of Paris Filmes, plans to release an average of two Estúdios Globo features per year.
