GRAMADO, Brazil — Local media giant Globo’s Estúdios Globo will produce feature film “Macacos” (“Monkeys”), based on a play of Clayton Nascimento, and telefilm “Os Tatuyos,” as part of the company’s ambitious Brazilian film production expansion, according to Amauri Soares, director of TV Globo and Estúdios Globo.

“Macacos” is in the development stage and will shoot in 2027, Soares told Variety at the Gramado Film Festival, which opened with the premiere of Estúdio Globo’s “Antártida.”

Nascimento is a consultant for the screenplay, written by Mariana Jaspe, under the supervision of Jaqueline Souza.

The play is a monologue written and starring Nascimento, which received the local Shell and APCA awards. The film will adapt one of the most powerful segments of the play, addressing the real case of Eduardo de Jesus Ferreira, a ten-year-old boy killed on April 2, 2015, in the Complexo do Alemão favela in Rio de Janeiro. He was sitting at the entrance of his home when he was struck by a rifle bullet during a police operation.

His mother, Terezinha Maria de Jesus, spent the following years seeking accountability for the police officers involved, but the investigation was closed. In 2023, a lawyer who had seen the play contacted Terezinha and began representing her. The investigation was reopened and, on June 26, the Rio de Janeiro State Public Prosecutor’s Office formally charged two police officers with aggravated homicide. According to the indictment, Eduardo was shot in the back, from a distance of about four meters.

“It is a play about structural racism in Brazil and violence against Black communities,” Soares told Variety. “Many people considered the play impossible to adapt for the screen because it is a monologue. We are going to tell the mother’s story, and the story of the play at the same time.”

Soares said the film fits the profile for theatrical release, but the decision about a possible distribution in local theaters will be made in the future.

Estúdios Globo and Artrupe Produções will produce “Os Tatuyos” (“The Tatuyos,” the name of an Indigenous tribe in the Amazon rainforest). Globo will open the telefilm on one of its three platforms, either streaming service Globoplay, pay-TV channel Telecine or free-to-air network TV Globo.

Daniela Ocampo and Luiza Yabrudi created the story and Angélica Campos wrote the screenplay of the telefilm, which is due to be lensed in the second half of this year, Soares said.

The telefilm is a comedy that follows Vinícius, a young surfer from Rio who falls in love with Paigô, an Indigenous woman, after seeing her in a viral video shot in the Tatuyo’s village. Determined to pursue this love story, he travels to the village, where he must overcome the challenges of adapting to a new environment, cultural differences and survival tests imposed by his beloved’s family.

Globo created in 2023 film division Estúdios Globo to make telefilms for Globoplay, its pay-TV channels and TV Globo in “Brazil’s Burbank,” the company’s complex of modern studios and permanent cast of actors, directors, writers and technicians in Rio that traditionally produces telenovelas and other TV shows. In three years, Estúdios Globo has produced 21 films, 11 of them this year. Globo fully finances the films, without tapping Brazilian incentives for film production.

Globo and Paris Filmes announced at the Cannes Film Festival an agreement for the theatrical distribution in Brazil of some of Estúdios Globo’s features. Marcio Fraccaroli, CEO of Paris, told Variety his company plans to release an average of two Estúdios Globo features per year, selected by the two partners and based on the theatrical potential of the productions.

“I managed to convince a film studio to compete for market share in theatrical distribution. We will now have another Brazilian player in the theatrical market,” Fraccaroli told Variety. “Needless to say, Globo is Brazil’s largest media group, with enormous promotional and marketing reach, not to mention the excellence of its teams and technological capabilities.”

The first Estúdios Globo film Paris will release is Bruno Safadi’s “Antártida,” which opened this year’s Gramado fest with an out of competition screening on Aug. 14. Paris will release the pic on Sept. 17 on 400-500 screens in Brazil, a large opening for a local film.

The film, written by Claudia Jouvin (“Perfect Days”), profited from Estúdios Globo’s technological capabilities to recreate the film’s setting of a Brazilian military and scientific base in Antarctica.

“Making an entire film in Antarctica would be unfeasible, both because of the cost and the weather conditions,” said Safadi. “Virtual production technology allowed us to create a fully immersive environment in which the real and virtual worlds merge before the eyes of the camera and the audience. It feels as though we are actually on the Antarctic continent.”

“Antártida,” which was acclaimed by the public attending the opening of Gramado, deals with the issue of violence against women. In the plot, scientist Inês (Marina Ruy Barbosa) is raped. Deputy commander Elisabeth (Andrea Beltrão) takes charge of the investigation to find the rapist.