Foreign Film News

Always on the Run: Karim Aïnouz Checks into “Motel Destino”

Published on August 7, 2023

Before moving on to his next weighty film project in Rosebushpruning (set for Spring 2024), Karim Aïnouz has already begun filming his next feature film. Returning to his native Brazil, Variety reports that Aïnouz (who is coming off his Croisette comp showcase with Firebrand – read our review) new film Motel Destino is filming with newbies Iago Xavier, Nataly Rocha and Fábio Assunção and part of the prod team we find Aïnouz reteaming with cinematographer Hélène Louvart and production designer Marcos Pedroso. The Match Factory are selling the film rights. This will surely make a bid to premiere in Cannes next year.

Co-written by Wislan Esmeraldo and Mauricio Zacharias, (part of our Sundance trading card series), Motel Destino is a love story erotic thriller coined as an “intimate picture of a youth whose future has been stolen by a toxic and oppressive elite, against which rebellion and violence are often the only possible way out”.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).