The rich feed off the poor in Guto Parente’s The Cannibal Club

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Berlin-based sales company M-appeal has acquired the world sales rights to writer/director Guto Parente's Brazilian horror film THE CANNIBAL CLUB ahead of this month's Rotterdam Festival, where the film will be showing as part of the Rotterämmerung genre section.

Produced by Parente and Ticiana Augusto through their company Tardo Filmes, THE CANNIBAL CLUB represents Brazil's political elite as "a cannibal, machista, amoral, and grossly self-unaware ruling class." The story centers on 

an extraordinarily rich couple, Otavio and Gilda, part of Brazil’s ruling elite, who have a habit of eating their employees. Fine upstanding members of the local Cannibal Club – Otavio is punctilious, a great chef, loving husband and critic of the third-world chaos of Brazil, whose insistence Gilda obeys him is only natural, he thinks … But when Gilda stumbles on the president of the Cannibal Club,  who has already engineered the death of one too-talkative Cannibal Club member in a highly compromising position, their only hope of staying alive is to call on the help of a humble, put-upon caretaker, José – with the idea of then eating him for dinner.

Parente said he looked into "the horror embedded in our society's behavior" with this film, which he describes as

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."

I have a personal connection to Brazil, so I'm always interested in delving further into the country's cinematic offerings, and THE CANNIBAL CLUB sounds quite interesting to me. Here's hoping M-appeal will be landing international distribution deals for the movie soon.