Jornal da Mostra / 49th mostra

The 49th São Paulo International Film Festival will feature among its honorees five names who are fundamental to cinema in different ways—whether through their aesthetic choices or their perspectives on social and political issues—and who will receive the traditional Leon Cakoff Prize and Humanity Award.

The Martinican director Euzhan Palcy, essential for constructing a counter-hegemonic and inspiring discourse for countless filmmakers, will receive the Humanity Award. The Mostra offers the public the opportunity to rediscover a work that remains remarkably current with the screening of “Sugar Cane Alley”, the film that won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1983, when she was 26 years old. Four decades later, the feature film continues to impact audiences as it did the first time. The tribute is completed by the films “A Dry White Season” (1989), her Hollywood foray, and “Siméon” (1992).

The Mostra has followed the cinema of Jafar Panahi since 1995, the year the 19th edition screened and awarded his first feature, “The White Balloon”. Since then, every new work by the Iranian director has kept its annual date with the Brazilian public. In 2018, the filmmaker received the Leon Cakoff Award, but he was imprisoned and could not come to Brazil. Now, in 2025, in addition to screening his brand-new work, “It Was Just an Accident”, winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the event dedicates the Humanity Award to him for demonstrating throughout his career how culture and art are fundamental powers in the defense of freedom.

The transition from the era of the proletariat to the age of the precariat has encouraged filmmakers to use cinema as a privileged observation post to register the impact of change on ordinary lives. The 49th Mostra grants the Humanity Award to the Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for the brothers' commitment to exposing what society often tries to overlook, but above all, for a cinema interested in people and their gestures of resistance. The festival will present their new film, "Young Mothers", winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

The 49th Mostra dedicates the Leon Cakoff Prize to the American screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman for his historical and present contribution to this art that never ceases to be reborn. As part of the tribute, the Brazilian premiere of his new film, “How to Shoot a Ghost”, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival, is included in the program. In this sensory wandering through the streets of Athens, Kaufman hunts his (and our) favorite ghosts: memory, identities, desires, and cinema. The animation “Anomalisa” (2015) is also part of the tribute to the director.

A fundamental name in Brazilian popular culture, Mauricio de Sousa is also celebrated with the Leon Cakoff Prize. As part of this tribute, the 2nd Mostrinha will screen three recent productions featuring the Limoeiro gang: "Monica and Friends: Bond”, “Monica and Friends: Lessons”, and “Chico Bento and the Marvelous Guava Tree”. Additionally, the screening of the biopic “Mauricio de Sousa – The Film” reveals the artist's origins, the beginning of his journey, and the birth of these characters who are part of the collective imagination.