The Inffinito Brazilian Film Festival, the largest festival of Brazilian cinema held outside Brazil, opens its 30th consecutive Miami edition tonight, Thursday, Sept. 3, at O Cinema South Beach, 1130 Washington Ave. The in-person program runs through Saturday, Sept. 12, split between the Washington Avenue art house, the Miami Beach Bandshell in North Beach, and Silverspot Cinema in downtown Miami. A free streaming season follows from Sept. 13 to 30 on the festival's own platform, inffinito.plus.
The City of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County are listed among the festival's sponsors, alongside Embratur, the Brazilian government's tourism agency.
Five nights in Miami Beach
Two of the three venues are in Miami Beach, and they carry the first five nights of the festival before the competition moves downtown.
O Cinema South Beach (1130 Washington Ave.) opens tonight with the documentary competition. A 6 p.m. opening cocktail precedes two screenings: The Roots of the Divine Feminine by Carla Camurati at 7 p.m., an international premiere, and 3 Ministers of Shangô by Sérgio Machado at 9 p.m., a U.S. premiere. The documentary slate continues Friday, Sept. 4, with The Apopcalypse According to Baby by Rafael Saar at 7 p.m. and To Vigo I Go! by Lírio Ferreira and Karen Harley at 9 p.m., both U.S. premieres.
O Cinema then hosts the festival's non-competition Panorama sidebar. Sunday, Sept. 6, brings My Pleasure by Jorge Furtado at 7 p.m., an international premiere, and Gonzaguinha, Freedom to Choose by Susanna Lira at 9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 7, opens with a 6 p.m. premiere cocktail for Let Me Live by Walther Neto, which screens at 7 p.m., followed by Little Creatures by Anne Pinheiro Guimarães at 9 p.m., both U.S. premieres.
Individual tickets are sold through the festival's own box office, not O Cinema's system, via the buy links on the festival program page. A $150 festival passport covers one ticket to every session at O Cinema South Beach and Silverspot plus two tickets to the Bandshell show; it is sold through the festival's passport link.
Miami Beach Bandshell (7275 Collins Ave.) stages the anniversary celebration, billed as "Viva Brazil," on Saturday, Sept. 5. Doors open at 6 p.m. with a DJ set, followed by an outdoor screening of the comedy Very Special Agents by Pedro Antônio, an international premiere, at roughly 6:30. A performance by the Capoeira Sol e Lua group follows around 8 to 8:15 p.m., with remarks from the festival's directors before a 9 p.m. concert by Rio de Janeiro singer-songwriter Maurício Baia with guests Lívia Cassel, Isa Duarte, Rafa Ducell, Pedro Abdala, accordionist Johnnie Laska and saxophonist Marcelo Cebukin, in a set the venue describes as running from samba and rock to axé and forró.
General admission is $25 plus fees. Miami Beach residents pay $12.50 plus fees with a valid Miami Beach Resident ID presented at check-in the day of the show. Children under 12 are free. Club-level cabanas are sold in blocks of six at $66.67 per ticket plus fees. Tickets are available through the Bandshell's event page and its Eventim ticketing link. The Bandshell is an open-air covered venue and runs rain or shine; the municipal lot across Collins Avenue at 73rd Street charges $2 an hour.
Then downtown
From Tuesday, Sept. 8, through Friday, Sept. 11, the feature and short-film competition runs at Silverspot Cinema in downtown Miami, with two double-bills a night pairing a short with a feature. The competition features include Old Bandits by Claudio Torres, Funk by Aly Muritiba, A Very Brazilian Heist by José Eduardo Belmonte, Papagaios by Douglas Soares, The Condor Conspiracy by André Sturm, If I Were You 3 by Anita Barbosa, Seduction by Zelito Viana and Marcos Palmeira, and Five Kinds of Fear by Bruno Bini. The closing night on Saturday, Sept. 12, combines the Crystal Lens awards with a tribute to actress and director Glória Pires, who is scheduled to attend a screening of her film Sexa.
Local press previews put this year's overall selection at more than 70 films, programmed by an all-female curatorial team, with additional titles reserved for the streaming season.
Thirty years, two "acts"
Inffinito was founded and is still run by Adriana L. Dutra, Cláudia Dutra and Viviane B. Spinelli. The organization says it has staged 110 festival editions worldwide since 1996, but Miami is its anchor: this is the 30th consecutive year here, dating to the era when the festival's opening nights were held outdoors and its competition screened at the Colony Theatre on Lincoln Road. For the anniversary the organizers have framed the event as a single festival in two acts, the Miami in-person season and a worldwide streaming season.
The streaming act is free with registration and runs on scheduled session times rather than on demand, with dedicated virtual "rooms" for a 30th-anniversary retrospective, the Glória Pires tribute and a set of cinematic biographies.
