Ella Rumpf leads Andrea Staka's Ibicaba historical drama
Ella Rumpf, Júlio Andrade and Ana Flávia Cavalcanti will star in Andrea Štaka's historical drama 'Ibicaba: O Paraíso Prometido,' Variety reported on Oct. 12. The title translates literally to 'Ibicaba: Promised Paradise.' Casting details were confirmed through the production.
The film is set in 1855 and follows a Swiss working-class single mother who travels to Brazil and faces debt, surveillance and exploitation in a society structured by slavery. It is adapted from Eveline Hasler's novel 'Ibicaba: O Paraíso nas Cabeças' and based on real-life events at the Ibicaba farm in rural São Paulo. The story also centres on Inocência, an enslaved Black woman with healing knowledge who devises strategies of resistance.
Brazil's MyMama Entertainment will produce the film in co-production, a structure where companies from different countries share costs and production duties, with Switzerland's Cinédokké Sagl and Brazil's MMM Carioca. Shooting is planned for next year in Switzerland and Cordeirópolis in São Paulo state. That puts the shoot in 2027.
Historical research is organised in collaboration with historian Caróu Oliveira. MyMama co-founder and chief executive Mayra Faour Auad discussed the project with Variety at the Rio Film Festival.
Štaka previously won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2006 for 'Das Fräulein.' She also took the best film award at the Sarajevo Film Festival that year for the same film.
The project secured the co-production development award at the Berlinale Co-Production Market last year, a festival market where producers pitch unfinished films to find partners and financing. That prize was the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, worth €20,000, Screen Daily reported, with the award going to Cinédokké and Okofilm Productions.
What makes this stand out is the path from market to set. A Berlin development prize, archival research and a two-country shoot now come together around a 19th-century migration story told from two sides.
