EXCLUSIVE: Brazilian director José Eduardo Belmonte and actor Rodrigo Lombardi are re-teaming for Em Suas Mãos (In Your Hands). The New York-set indie movie follows two Brazilian immigrants living in New York who are hellbent on revenge after a family member is killed and the perpetrator goes unpunished
Belmonte and Lombardi previously worked together on award-winning Brazilian drama Carcereiros (Jailers). The Globo series scooped the Grand Jury Award at the MIPDrama event in Cannes back in 2017.
Belmonte unpacked the backstory to his new project. “In 2018, we were living through an explosion of hatred and division, which greatly intrigued me,” he told Deadline.
“During the pandemic, I reached out to screenwriter and adjunct professor at Columbia, Fábio Andrade, and together we developed a story about revenge. Fábio brought a lot of his experience as a Brazilian in New York.”
Em Suas Mãos will be shot mostly in English, with some scenes in Portuguese or Spanish. “The film is about revenge in a divided world where faith in institutions has been lost,” Belmonte said. “It also deals with immigration, relations between the Americas and, yes, it talks about family.”
Belmonte’s Filmes do Impossível and Marcelo Maia’s Republica Pureza Filmes are the banners behind the movie with H2O Films as a coproducer.
Lombardi played a correctional officer in the popular Brazilian series Jailers, which was inspired by the eponymous Dráuzio Varela novel. He has also been a judge on the Brazilian edition of The Masked Singer.
“Rodrigo was the actor I worked with the most on set,” Belmonte said of his time as a director across two seasons of Jailers over a span of almost three years.
“We got to know each other well and established a creative partnership. After the series, we thought a lot about working together again, but in a more intimate setting. Now, there is also the challenge of acting in a language that is not his own.”
Filming on Em Suas Mãos is set for later this year.
