Oscar-Nominated Sentimental Value star Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas will join The Secret Agent lead Wagner Moura on Brazilian film The Outsider, where Ibsdotter Lilleaas will have the central role.
Bringing together stars of the two biggest non-English language movies at this year’s Academy Awards, The Outsider (A Estrangeira) is produced by São Paulo’s Maria Farinha Filmes and written and directed by Brazilian filmmaker Sandra Delgado (Disney’s Maria: The Outlaw Legend).
Oscar nominated for The Secret Agent which won him a best actor award last year at Cannes, Moura is already on board as one of The Outsider’s executive producers. He will also play a key role in the film.
Based on two decades of research, Delgado’s first fiction feature, The Outsider is described as an “intimate biopic” of photographer Claudia Andujar, who will be played by Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas.
A Swiss-born Brazilian artist and activist who lost her family in the Holocaust, Andujar sought refuge in Brazil, finding inspiration, a connection to community and a need sense of belonging, depicting the Yanomami people via her photographic work.
When Brazil’s military dictatorship cuts a major highway through Yanomami land in the mid ‘70s, her images become an act of resistance and a turning point in her life, Maria Farinha Filmes said Thursday.
Andujar’s work has contributed to the demarcation of Indigenous lands and vaccination campaigns in the Amazon region. Her photographs form part of the permanent collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Tate in the U.K. They are exhibited in a dedicated gallery in Brazil’s Inhotim.
“I’m so happy to be part of telling Claudia’s story, and the story of the Yanomami people and I’m excited to be collaborating with Sandra and Wagner, and I can’t think of a better project to do so,” said Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who lived for a year as a high-school student in Brazil’s Rio Verde, Goiás state, central Brazil.
“From the start, I envisioned an actress who could embody both Claudia’s European roots and her deep connection to Brazil,” Delgado stated. “Wagner [Moura] met Inga in Telluride and, surprisingly or by coincidence, she introduced herself speaking Portuguese. After seeing her work in Sentimental Value, it was clear she had the sensitivity the role demanded. Claudia Andujar’s story and the Yanomami struggle deeply moved her. She cared immediately, and that mattered to me.”
“Inga has a magnetic presence on screen that aligns beautifully with the emotional dimensions of this story,” noted Mariana Oliva, Maria Farinha Filmes co-CEO. “Sandra’s writing gives us a character who feels boundless, and we’re excited to see that vastness take shape through Inga’s interpretation.”
For Moura, “The Outsider is a film I can’t wait to see on screen. It represents the type of cinema that I feel the most drawn to – a cinema that unites a powerful story with a vital struggle. Claudia’s journey is an urgent story that is still tragically relevant today. It is a story crafted with rare care and intention.”
Behind Globoplay hit Amazon-set thriller Aruanas, watched by 35 million viewers per episode, and Netflix hit doc franchise The Beginning of Life, the most watched Brazilian documentary in 2016, María Farinha Filmes is now in pre-production on The Girl Who Could Fly, inspired by the life journey of trailblazing Black gymnast Daiane dos Santos, co-produced by Viola Davis’ Ashé Ventures.
María Farinha Filmes is also on advanced post-production on Eryk Rocha’s Elza, a doc portrait of legendary singer Elza Soares, and via archive fragments of Brazilian films featuring key Black artists, a record of the political and artistic struggles and transformation of Brazil’s Black movement.
In a major expansive move, in 2024 Maria Farinha Films launched the Los Angles-based MFF & Co, which in turn acquired a minority stake in London’s four-time Oscar-nominated Violet Films.
Projects set up at MFF & Co include “Possible,” inspired by William Ury’s bestselling book, “Pegasus,” created by Amit Cohen (“False Flag”) and Ron Leshem (“Euphoria”), “Fail-Safe,” directed by Joe Berlinger (“Paradise Lost”) and “Esperanza,” created by Marcos Nisti and Estela Renner and set to be directed by Fernando Meirelles (“City of God”).
Earlier this year, MFF & Co also announced U.S. writers Alexander Maggio, Jenny Lynn and Ted Sullivan will adapt Globo telenovelas for North American audiences.
