Private equity fund MUV Capital is allying with Brazilian distribution company Retrato Filmes to co-invest in its distribution slate of projects, including acquisition of buzzy titles made for Brazil and Latin America at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
São Paulo-based, MUV Capital is the entertainment arm of Latin America’s leading alternative asset management company, Hurst Capital.
MUV Capital’s initial investments have been made in the music industry and fine arts. Its alliance with Retrato is its first audiovisual investment in Brazil and first solo project. It comes after Laura Rossi was appointed in November as MUV’s head of investments in audiovisual. A specialist in financing, rights management and positioning projects in the market, Rossi previously served as a former head of international at Gullane, one of Brazil’s biggest independent film-TV production houses.
Previously joining other equity funds to invest in two international titles, “Swimming Home” and “The Summer Book,” MUV Capital is now “branching out of from just private equity in projects to better serve the Brazilian market’s specific needs,” said Rossi.
Private sector investment in Brazil’s film industry is “incipient,” she added. This early move of MUV Capital is a bet on the potential growth in Brazil’s movie market, on the ability to exploit emerging market opportunities and on Retrato Filmes itself.
The new distribution force has been launched by two young veterans, Felipe Lopes, former director of distribution at Brazil’s Vitrine Filmes (“Bacurau,” “Another Round”) and Daniel Pech, who produced Felipe Carmona’s “Prison in the Andes” and executive produced Domingo Sotomayor “Too Late to Die Young” and Gabriela Amaral’s “Friendly Beast.”
Out of Cannes or later this year, in 2025 Retrato is aiming to buy a total of three international films though deals don’t have to be closed at Cannes and could be supplemented by buys at Venice or Toronto, said Lopes.
The distribution house is already circling titles at Cannes, he added.
“Brazil is a country with a big distribution potential. We have a population of 200 million – but in 2024 only sold 125 million tickets in theatrical,” Rossi told Variety.
“We know our public policy-makers are working hard to close the gap in infrastructure, to ramp up the number of theaters – currently we have 3,500 theatrical screens in Brazil, one third in just one state: São Paulo. We are excited to play our part in the goal of boosting Brazil’s theatrical attendance with this partnership between Retrato Filmes and MUV,” she added.
“Brazil is also one of the [world’s] main markets for VOD platforms,” she also observed.
Over the last 10 months, championing auteurist independent cinema from Brazil and Latin America, Retrato has released seven films in local theaters, such as doc feature “This Is Ballroom,” a tribute to the resurgent Black, queer ballroom scene, and Diana Montenegro’s coming of age feature debut “A Alma Quer Voar,” plus co-productions “Soul of the Desert,” a Venice Queer Lion, and “Prisoner of the Andes” and “The Human Surge 3.”
Retrato also bowed Marco Calvani’s U.S. feature “High Tide,” a SXSW title with Marco Pigossi, James Bland, Marisa Tomei and Bill Irwin, and a 4K re-release of “Mulholland Drive.”
“With this co-investment arrangement, Retrato will re-position itself in the Latin American market, being able to acquire bigger films and offer them to different players,” said Rossi.
“We can now expand. Our plan is to double down on international releases, acquiring big titles that perform well in competition in A-list festivals buying not only Brazil but Latin American,” Pech said at Cannes.
The MUV-Retrato partnership launches as Brazil’s federal government has not renewed distribution incentives, which lapsed in 2018. Crucially, funding will cover not only movie buys but also P&A, enabling films to run more weeks at more theaters, Pech noted.
The pact also comes as arthouse is evolving fast, maintaining often a social issue focus and artistic ambition but taking on genre or multi-genres and a larger sense of audience, thanks often to a newer generation of writer-directors.
“You saw that last year at Cannes with ‘The Substance,’ which is one of the benchmarks we use,” said Lopes, also citing “I’m Still Here” and “Anatomy of a Fall.” “That’s the kind of film that we are aiming for: films that can reach a bigger audience. With this investment, we can make that happen. We want to launch with a good marketing campaign and enough copies to spread a release all over Brazil,” he noted.
“If audiences don’t go to films, sometimes it’s not because they don’t like the synopsis they read, it’s because they don’t know the film exists,” Pech added.
