Boutique Filmes and Anonymous Content Brazil have lined up Felipe Vellas to direct “Bateau Mouche,” inspired by the real-life sinking of the titular boat on New Year’s Eve 1988. The film will be penned by Gustavo Lipsztein, who also wrote the massively successful Netflix series “Radioactive Emergency” and “The Endless Night,” also inspired by historical Brazilian tragedies.
Vellas’s prior collaboration with Boutique, “Elize: Shadows of a Woman,” was also an international hit on Netflix, where it led the global ranking for non-English language films, reaching 17.4 million views in a week and landing top 10 spots on the platform across 90 countries. Vellas will follow up a true crime hit with another real-life story by chronicling the 1988 accident, when the Bateau Mouche IV boat sank in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay, killing 55 people. The tragedy remains one of the most shocking in the country’s history.
Speaking with Variety, Boutique Filmes partner Gustavo Mello says the project stems from their partnership with the director, who is also a partner at Anonymous Content. “We had great affinity working together on ‘Elise’ and felt we needed to find another project together,” he adds. “We had several conversations with Bárbara Teixeira, his partner on Anonymous, to try finding a film that would encompass the dimension of our creative partnership, which I believe is very strong. We are two companies with a very interesting way of operating in the market. When we landed on this story, we felt it captured the ambition of this partnership.”
“Bateau Mouche” will follow the moments before and after the tragedy while also focusing on the human stories at the heart of the loss. The film is set to centre the passengers, crew, and their families during that one fateful night.
“We believe this story captures Brazil at a very particular time, entering the New Republic with a sense of hope and a belief in a new country,” says Mello. “That’s when this tragic accident happens, within a system of irresponsibility. So it’s a story that says a lot about Brazil but also about human relationships as you see the characters undergo such a dramatic situation.”
Asked about the sensitivity required when dealing with real-life stories like Matsunaga’s and the Bateau Mouche sinking, Mello says he is greatly aware of the “responsibility” that comes with it. “With the projects we have worked on, we have a need for creative autonomy, but it has to be absolutely anchored in an ethical responsibility so we can make the right decisions.”
Mello adds that the film has a “very specific challenge” when it comes to its ambition to recreate such a large-scale accident. “We are working hard to find the right technical solutions, mixing practical effects with VFX so we can execute the film at a very high artistic level,” he adds. “I think all of us in the Brazilian industry have this responsibility towards the public, to diversify what we do and elevate the level of quality of our productions.”
“The Bateau Mouche tragedy encompasses countless stories, many still untold or not fully understood, involving victims, family members, ordinary people, celebrities, heroes, and villains,” said Vellas. “It is an event that has never truly reached its conclusion. The film therefore aims to present the perspective of those directly affected by the accident, both on that night and in the ensuing events that have spanned more than three decades.”
Anonymous Content CEO Teixeira said “Bateau Mouche” is “deeply aligned with our mission at Anonymous: telling stories of great cultural significance.”
“The shipwreck, which occurred just moments before the start of 1989, was surrounded by events, both before and after the tragedy, that impacted the lives of dozens of families and shocked the nation,” she added. “Going back in time and blending a factual reenactment with a highly polished dramatic narrative helps bring this episode back to life and sheds light on acts of irresponsibility that, to this day, have not been properly investigated nor punished.”