Brazil Incentives Dry up, Strangling Film Production

A new apocalypse now haunts Brazilian cinema. It’s one in a string of such upheavals over the past year including an envisaged 43% cut to the 2020 budget of Ancine, Brazil’s huge film-tv agency and motor of movie funding, which is already grinding almost to a halt. Producers are still waiting to receive approved incentives. “There are several producers, including ourselves, who have projects that won support from the [Pernambuco] regional fund in 2017 and 2018, but never received it,” says Desvia producer Rachel Daisy Ellis (“Divine Love”). Independent productions are being strangled by the freeze. “It’s bleeding cinema, it’s bleeding culture. There is a sense of doom, an anemia regarding culture and cinema,” says Karim Aïnouz, director of “Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão.” Now, Ancine is under threat of disappearing altogether. On Feb. 19, a proposal will be voted on in congress that extinguishes existing public funds not ratified by the