In the run-up to late January’s Rotterdam Fest, Berlin-based sales company M-appeal has acquired world sales rights to Guto Parente’s The Cannibal Club, a horror movie packing a searing, if often comic, put-down of Brazil’s political elite represented as a cannibal, machista, amoral and grossly self-unaware ruling class, explains Variety.
Meshing frank sex scenes, occasional dismemberment and laugh-out-loud social satire, The Cannibal Club turns on an extraordinarily rich couple, Otavio and Gilda, part of Brazil’s ruling elite, who have a habit of eating their employees.
“For me, the film is an investigation into the cynicism of the Brazilian elite and how far they can take it. As well as a reflection on the role men insist on playing in society to prove their virility and maintain their power,” Parente told Variety.
Parente added that he was interested in “looking deep into the horror embedded in our society’s behavior,” focusing not on explicit violence but more the “violence of speech and thought of those who truly believe they are above everything and everyone because they have money and power.”
Genre gives “a possibility to step away from this real-world violence, creating an absurd reality based on its violence and archetypes and from that maybe offer to the spectator a safe distance to look and think about what they are seeing,” Parente added.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“Otávio and Gilda are a very wealthy couple of the Brazilian elite who have the habit of eating their employees. Despite some casual disagreements and discussions, the couple gets along well and lives a peaceful and happy life. Until the day Gilda accidentally discovers a secret from Borges, a powerful congressman friend of her husband, what happens to put their life at risk. Under this imminent and invisible threat, Otávio and Gilda will need to count with the help of Jonas, the newly hired employee.”
The Cannibal Club has been selected for the Rotterdam Festival’s newly-revived Rotterämmerung genre section.