Brazil has named Sergio Rezende’s true life drama Salve Geral as the country’s entry for the foreign language Oscar.

Like Bruno Barreto’s Last Stop 174, which Brazil submitted for consideration in the Academy Awards category last year, the plot centers on real violent events.

Salve Geral recounts the attacks that became known as “the Brazilian September 11th’’, when the criminal organization called PCC promoted an outbreak of violence against civil and authority targets in May 2006 in Sao Paulo. The story is told through the eyes of a piano teacher (Andrea Beltrao) who tries everything to get her teenager son out of jail.

According to the country’s audiovisual secretary Silvio Da-Rin, the movie was chosen for “its artistic and technical quality, the sum invested in the budget (about R$ 8m/US$ 4.4m) and the contemporaneity of the subject’’.

“The attacks in the largest city in South America made headlines all over the world,’’ says the producer Joaquim Vaz de Carvalho, who worked previously with Rezende on Zuzu Angel (2006) and Mauá – O Imperador e o Rei (1999). “We believe the relevance of the theme will help us attract the Academy members attention. And it is not just about the violence. It is also a journey of a widow who turns out to have strengths that she had never imagined.’’

Produced by Toscana Audiovisual, the film had its premiere in a single theater in Taubate, Sao Paulo state, two weeks ago, just to fulfill the qualification criteria. The distributor Sony/Downtownwill go wide with Salve Geral in Brazil on October 2nd.

The Oscar nominations will be announced on February 2nd and the 82nd awards ceremony will take place on March 7th.

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