‘Motel Destino’, Karim Aïnouz’s Erotic Thriller Begins Shoot In Brazil

‘Motel Destino’ has started its shooting.

After directing the English-language drama Firebrand with Alicia Vikander and Jude Law, Karim Anouz has started filming the sensual thriller Motel Destino in Brazil.

Filming for the upcoming motion picture started on July 31 in Ceará, an eastern Brazilian province that is home to the Brazilian-Algerian director.

As filming begins, The Match Factory, which already represents a number of Anouz's films including Mariner of the Mountains (2021), Invisible Life (2019), and Praia do Futuro (2014), announced that it had acquired the international sales rights.

After Firebrand, which had its world premiere in competition at Cannes this year, and The Invisible Life, the 2019 Un Certain Regard winner, Motel Destino is Anouz's eighth film.

The director refers to the motel setting as "the main character of the plot" and describes it as a meeting point for long-standing problems in contemporary Brazil, where the youth of the nation have had their futures stolen by a toxic and oppressive elite, leading to acts of rebellion and violence as the only means of escape.

"Motel Destino is the Brazilian saga of the encounter between a person on the run, utterly helpless, and another who is being crushed in an abusive marriage," he says.

"Motel Destino is, above all, a love story. The love between a peripheral young man who lives against a system that wants him dead and a woman who resists the attacks of patriarchy against her own life," he adds.

The aesthetic and narrative tone will be established by Anouz's vibrant native state of Ceará.

Along with the Emmy-nominated actor Fábio Assunço (Songs of Betrayal), local actors Iago Xavier and Nataly Rocha play the key parts. They were chosen from more than 500 performers during tryouts.

"I’m very interested in talking about crime, not sordid crime, but crime as the only escape from the place we are living in, the world we live in. How do you beat absolute helplessness? It’s a theme very present in contemporary Brazil. It’s not about being victimized, but rather completely marginalized," adds Aïnouz.