The 34th São Paulo International Film Festival (site), which opened on Friday and runs through November 4, is partnering with MUBI to make a dozen shorts and over 50 features it's screening available online — for free — to viewers in Brazil.
A sampling of the highlights would include Red Light Revolution (the site has a trailer), written and directed by Sam Voutas (who appeared in Lu Chuan's City of Life and Death) and flying in the face of expectations many might have of Chinese cinema — it's a comedy about opening a sex shop in a conservative Beijing neighborhood.
Back in January, John Anderson wrote in Variety that "William S Burroughs has been overripe for the kind of substantive, stylistically simpatico docu treatment he gets from helmer Yony Leyser, whose William S Burroughs: A Man Within does real justice to the Beat writer, gun nut and literary icon."
Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas's Jean Gentil, depicting the struggles of a Haitian immigrant in the Dominican Republic, won a special mention citation when it screened in Venice's Orizzonti sidebar in September and has since screened again at the Viennale.
"Sexy and offbeat, Bloomington is a fantastic little drama from writer-director Fernanda Cardoso," writes Danielle Riendeau at AfterEllen. "Smartly playing with — and even subverting — the teacher-student lesbian romance, it's a refreshing treat."
Emily Landau spoke with Ingrid Veninger for the Walrus when her film, Modra, screened in Toronto. Also: Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quattro Volte (The Four Times; see the Cannes and NYFF roundups), three films by Bent Hamer (Eggs, Water Easy Reach, Kitchen Stories) and more.