Lula biopic gets thumbs down from New York exhibitor

The story seemed tailor-made for Hollywood: a hardworking country-boy's epic journey from impoverished rural Brazil to the big city and then on to the presidency of one of the largest democracies on Earth. But the producers of a multimillion-dollar biopic about Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva say plans for a US release have hit a speedbump after one exhibitor backed out of showing the film, fearing Lula's controversial relationship with Iran might put off audiences. Lula, the Son of Brazil, a two-hour movie about one of the world's most popular presidents, was launched in Brazil on 1 January this year and follows the leftwing leader's rise from the scorched backlands of his country's north-east to the pinnacle of Brazilian politics. With the catchline: "The story of a common man, his family and the extraordinary capacity to overcome difficulties," the film promises a Brazilian take on the American dream. Yet while its producers hope Lula's struggles against adversity will strike a chord with US audiences, the president's strengthening links to the Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have given at least one New York exhibitor cold feet. "We got in touch with this [exhibitor] … and he saw the film and loved it," Paula Barreto, the film's producer, told the Guardian from New York. "Then he backed out. As a businessman whose audience is predominantly Jewish, he thought it was not a good deal," she added, saying the exhibitor feared viewers would "boycott" the film as a result of Lula's ties to the Iranian leader, who last year described the Holocaust as an "unprovable and mythical claim". Barreto declined to name the exhibitor but said he was the owner of six cinemas in New York. "It wasn't a shock. It was a decision based on marketing, on business. I understand his position perfectly," she said. "I thought it was a shame [but] … there are thousands of other screens [in the US]." Referring to the setback, the weekly news magazine Veja, a vocal critic of Lula's relationship with Ahmadinejad, said the film had gone from "national failure" to "international embarrassment". While the makers had hoped for audiences of up to six million in Brazil, their film struggled at the box office against blockbusters such as Avatar and was widely criticised for glossing over the more compromising aspects of the president's past. Barreto said her production company still expected to begin a nationwide launch of the film in the US in 2011. The largely American audience at a recent festival screening in New York had "loved" the film, she said. "It has everything to do with the American model of the self-made man. We are in the middle of negotiations with two distributors which are well advanced and our plan is still the same."