Mars One / Marte Um by Gabriel Martins was the big winner at the 22nd edition of the Brazilian Cinema Grand Prix (Grande Prêmio do Cinema Brasileiro), taking home eight awards including for Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Cinematography. The winners of this year’s Brazilian Cinema Grand Prix were announced this week at an in-person ceremony in Rio de Janeiro.
Mars One had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, and has played at numerous film festivals. The film follows the Martins family, who are optimistic dreamers, quietly leading their lives in the margins of a major Brazilian city following the disappointing inauguration of a far-right extremist president. A lower-middle-class Black family, they feel the strain of their new reality as the political dust settles. Tércia, the mother, reinterprets her world after an unexpected encounter leaves her wondering if she’s cursed.
Her husband, Wellington, puts all of his hopes into the soccer career of their son, Deivinho, who reluctantly follows his father’s ambitions despite secretly aspiring to study astrophysics and colonize Mars. Meanwhile, their older daughter, Eunice, falls in love with a free-spirited young woman and ponders whether it’s time to leave home.
Other winners of this year’s Brazilian Cinema Grand Prix include Kobra Auto Retrato by Lina Chamie for Best Documentary; Charcoal / Carvão for Best Directorial Debut; Argentina, 1985 by Santiago Mitre for Best Ibero-American Motion Picture; and Bem-vinda a Quixeramobim by Halder Gomes won the Audience Award.
