Rio’s international film festival, Festival do Rio, takes place for the 16th consecutive year between 24 September and 8 October 2014.

The festival is headquartered in the historic heart of the city at the Armazém da Utopia (http://armazemdautopia.com.br), and will screen films from more than 60 countries at 35 venues spread across the city.

Brazilian films and Première Brasil, which this year will mainly screen at the Cinépolis Lagoon (www.lagoon.com.br) on the Lagoa, close to Ipanema, are the core of Festival do Rio, and the festival is rightfully acknowledged as the best annual global showcase of contemporary Brazilian cinema.

In total Première Brasil will screen over 40 new Brazilian full-length features and documentaries during the festival, most of which are having their world premieres in Rio. For 2014 there are ten full-length features in competition and ten documentaries.

Festival do Rio is also known for bringing the very best of international cinema to Brazil, and this year is no exception with more than 60 countries represented across the festival program by nearly 350 new or historically important films. Among the directors whose work will screen at the festival are David Cronenberg, David Fincher, Richard Linklater, Mike Leigh, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Ken Loach, Larry Clark, Xavier Dolan, Takashi Miike, Kim Ki-Duk, Jason Reitman and Frederick Wiseman.

The festival will open with a screening of Wim Wender and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado’s documentary The Salt of the Earth, which looks at the great Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, and will close with the world premier of Stephen Daldry’s Trash that was filmed in Rio de Janeiro.