With an exotic portrait that combines violence and impunity with natural charms, Rio de Janeiro has become the setting for blockbuster Hollywood productions, such as the fifth part of ‘Fast & Furious’ or ‘Dawn’, which present an idyllic image and at the same time realistic time of the brazilian city.
At the beginning of this month, the premiere of ‘Rio’, an animated film shown in 150 countries, was considered the beginning of a great tourist campaign that through the cinema tries to project the landscape wonders of the ‘Cidade Maravilhosa’. The film uses the adventures of two blue macaws to take abroad a charming postcard of the city with the reproduction of the Christ the Redeemer sculpture, the sambadrome, the beaches and other tourist places.
“The city has very attractive locations for filming,” said Steve Solot, president of the public company Rio Film, a body created by the Rio Mayor’s Office to guide audiovisual production towards economic development. Other experts agree with Solot when pointing out that Rio is a “plural city” for cinema due to its geographical characteristics and its contrast between the sea and the mountains, in which the favelas have partly displaced the green that covers the hills.
Far from that pompous and celestial portrait is ‘ Fast Five ‘, the fifth installment of the ‘Fast & Furious’ saga, presented a few weeks ago in the city and whose premiering the United States it is scheduled for tomorrow, Friday. In the plot, the car thief Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), who is under an arrest warrant, flees with his gang to Rio de Janeiro, which in the film appears reflected as a paradise of corruption and impunity, a situation that has bothered the local press.
In order to provide the film with a greater dose of violence, ‘Fast Five’ shot scenes in the Dona Marta favela, where Toretto, in his attempt to flee from the police, is greeted by heavily armed traffickers. In that location, spectacular shootouts and bloody hand-to-hand battles were filmed, punctuated with the appearance of beautiful women who recreate the cliché of Brazilian sensuality, where Elsa Pataky stands out.
Apart from the international repercussion, the benefits obtained from the recording of these tapes are estimated, according to local media, at five million dollars and the creation of 700 temporary jobs. Coincidentally, the filming of ‘Fast Five’ last November coincided with that of ‘Breaking Dawn’, the latest installment of the vampire saga ‘ Twilight ‘ which will be released at the end of this year.
The romantic scenes of ‘Sunrise’ in Rio de Janeiro
The bohemian neighborhood of Lapa, known for its viaduct formed by arches and for its nightlife, was agitated for several days by the presence of teen idols Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, stars of the film. This fever to shoot in Rio de Janeiro is partly due to the logistical and financial support that Rio Film provides to the productions every year, which Solot estimates at 1.2 million dollars.
“The city is experiencing a boom moment and it is even the movie producers who set themselves the goal of filming in Rio de Janeiro because of the publicity that this entails for the movies,” added Solot. The advertising impact attests to the success of ‘Rio’, which for the third consecutive weekend topped the box office in the United States and Canada and remains the most watched production of the year in Brazil.
On a local level, Rio de Janeiro has also been the scene of the two films of ‘Elite Squad’, which goes into the favelas to address, with a vibrant style, the organized crime that is shaking the country and the corruption that affects the establishment. politician and police Solot announced that, as a tribute to the ‘Cidade Maravilhosa’, Rio hopes to host the filming of ‘Rouge Brasil’ this year, a Franco-Brazilian co-production with historical connotations.