World Premiere
Latin America’s defining discourse on the grotesque finds one of its most notable expressions in O Império do Grotesco by Muniz Sodré and Raquel Paiva. In a candid conversation, the duo return to their seminal work with renewed intellectual curiosity, revisiting its provocations at a moment when its insights feel strikingly urgent under the current American political climate.
Opera Kitsch playfully unravels the artifice of our contemporary world, rekindling a vital conversation about fact, fiction, and truth, while skipping on the unstable terrain between them. In a world saturated with digital spectacle, algorithmic excess, and political fabrication, the filmmakers ask a deceptively simple question: Do we still recognize the grotesque when we see it?
Muniz Sodré, Raquel Paiva
Brazil
2026
In Portuguese with English subtitles
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Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Bárbara Tavela
Producer
Bárbara Tavela, Lobo Mauro
Screenwriter
C. Ricardo, Lobo Mauro
Cinematography
Marcelo Brito
Editor
C. Ricardo, Lobo Mauro
Original Music
C. Ricardo
C. Ricardo
C. Ricardo is a filmmaker from Rio de Janeiro, trained in cinema. He has worked as an editor, camera operator, and writer for both screen and comics, with credits in underground shorts and in animation editing. An interest in experimentalism, surrealism, and horror runs through his work. He is currently an editor at the School of Communication of UFRJ. Opera Kitsch (2026), which he also scored, is his first film as a director.
Lobo Mauro
Lobo Mauro is a Brazilian filmmaker and editor based in Rio de Janeiro. His short films have been awarded at Oberhausen and FICTS Milan and selected at festivals including Clermont-Ferrand and IndieLisboa. As an editor, he cut the three most recent shorts by Leonardo Martinelli, which together have won more than 200 awards, among them the Pardino d’Oro at Locarno. Opera Kitsch (2026) is his fourth film as director.
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