Screen Brasil Picks 'Gugu's World' and 'Our Secret' for Overseas Push
Two Brazilian features, Allan Deberton's Gugu's World and Grace Passô's Our Secret, have been chosen as the next recipients of Screen Brasil, a support scheme for films from Brazil seeking audiences abroad. Variety reported the selection on 21 October 2026. It was announced at a panel during the Industry Days of the São Paulo International Film Festival.
Screen Brasil is run by Embratur, Brazil's tourism agency, together with Projeto Paradiso, an initiative that works to get Brazilian features into international distribution. Each selected film receives $15,000 to help its international rollout. The money covers subtitling, marketing, publicity and building an audience. Both films premiered at the Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival, earlier this year.
Each film also has a set of partners lined up for different territories. For Gugu's World, Screen Brasil support covers its release in Spain, and its international sales are handled by M-Appeal, a company based in Germany. Sales companies sell a film to cinemas and television buyers in markets outside its home country. For Our Secret, support covers distribution in the United States and Canada, and international sales go to The Open Reel, based in Italy.
Gugu's World is Deberton's second feature. Separately, the film has been reported as Brazil's entry for Best International Feature at the 2027 Academy Awards, the Oscars category for films not made in English. Screen Daily reported that the Brazilian Film Academy made that choice in September. Our Secret has also been honoured at home, winning the Kikito Award for Best Film at the Gramado Film Festival.
The programme is still young. Screen Brasil was first announced during the 2025 Rio Film Festival. In May 2026 its inaugural recipients were named: Papaya, directed by Priscilla Kellen and handled by Best Friend Forever; The Blue Trail, from Gabriel Mascaro and sold by Lucky Number; and The Nature of Invisible Things, by Rafaela Camelo, sold by The Open Reel. Organisers plan to open a second round of applications for an expanded second edition in the first half of 2027.
Christiano Braga, Embratur's audiovisual and creative economy coordinator, and Rachel do Valle, programme director at Projeto Paradiso, are the officials running the scheme. The list of recipients is a sign of where the money is going, not of how the films will do. For most Brazilian titles, the hard part comes after a festival premiere: finding a buyer, a distributor and a cinema prepared to show a film with subtitles. Support like this pays for the work that happens once that deal is in place.
For readers keeping track of the calendar, the next concrete dates are the 2027 Oscar race and the planned second application round. Both fall after this year's festival season has ended.
