Felipe Vellas to direct Bateau Mouche sinking drama for Boutique and Anonymous
Felipe Vellas will direct Bateau Mouche, a feature centred on the sinking of a party boat in Rio de Janeiro on New Year’s Eve 1988, for Boutique Filmes and Anonymous Content Brazil, as reported by Variety.
The attachment was reported on 12 October 2026. Gustavo Lipsztein will write the screenplay, the written script that sets dialogue, scenes and structure before shooting begins. The project brings together two Brazilian production houses around a national tragedy still remembered in Rio.
The facts behind the story are stark. The Bateau Mouche IV went down in Guanabara Bay, the broad bay that faces the city of Rio de Janeiro, on the night of 31 December 1988. Fifty-five people died.
The film will not range far from that night. It will follow the hours before and after the sinking through passengers, crew members and their families. That focus keeps the narrative close to the people on board and those waiting for them ashore, rather than a wider historical survey.
Lipsztein arrives with experience in fact-based drama for streaming. He wrote the Netflix series Radioactive Emergency and The Endless Night, according to Variety. Both are Portuguese-language series built around real events in Brazil. His hiring points to a treatment grounded in research and testimony.
Vellas has a recent history with Boutique Filmes. He collaborated with the company on Elize: Shadows of a Woman. That film drew 17.4 million views in a single week to lead Netflix’s global ranking for non-English-language films. It reached the Top 10 in 90 countries.
Those numbers matter in the current market. A non-English-language ranking measures viewing across all countries outside English, and a week-long lead suggests wide pickup beyond its home territory. A Top 10 place in 90 countries indicates breadth rather than strength in one market alone.
The producing team is led by familiar names at both companies. Gustavo Mello is a partner at Boutique Filmes. Vellas himself is a partner at Anonymous Content, whose chief executive is Bárbara Teixeira.
Anonymous Content works as both a production company, which develops and makes film and television, and a management company, which represents writers, directors and actors. It was founded in 1999 by Steve Golin. Its Brazilian arm is partnering with Boutique Filmes on this project.
What makes this stand out for general viewers is the restraint of the plan. No cast has been announced. No release date has been set. The early news is simply about who will guide the production and who will shape the story, before cameras turn on a night many Brazilian families still mourn.
