Ricardo Alves Jr.’s The French Teacher has secured a key international sales deal ahead of its world premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Paris-based Urban Sales has boarded the psychological thriller through a co-representation partnership with Les Valseurs Distribution, with both companies handling the film’s joint international sales mandate. The deal arrives just before the film’s September premiere in the Horizontes Latinos section, giving the Brazil-France-Portugal production an international market presence as it prepares to meet festival audiences.
For international buyers, the timing is significant: the sales partnership arrives before the first public screening, allowing the film to enter the festival market with both a clear identity and representation.
Starring Grace Passô as Graça, The French Teacher follows a French teacher living in Belo Horizonte with her French girlfriend, Clara. When Graça’s father suffers a health emergency, she returns to the suburban home where she grew up. A neighbouring family connected to a local religious congregation initially offers support, but their influence gradually becomes threatening as Graça finds herself caught in an environment shaped by intolerance and fanaticism.
The story gives Ricardo Alves Jr. room to bring psychological suspense together with social themes. Rather than treating its unsettling elements as a straightforward horror setup, the film uses Graça’s experience to explore pressure, prejudice and the danger of religious extremism. The result is a thriller rooted in a recognisable social setting, while its darker atmosphere steadily pushes the personal story into more disturbing territory.
That approach also connects the film with Ricardo Alves Jr.’s earlier work. The Belo Horizonte-born filmmaker has built an international festival profile through his short films and his 2016 debut feature, Elon Doesn’t Believe in Death. His work has appeared at Cannes, Berlinale, Rotterdam and Locarno, while the Cinémathèque Française presented a retrospective of his short films in 2013. The filmmaker has therefore entered San Sebastián with a body of work already familiar to international festival audiences.
The new film is also notable for its international production structure. The French Teacher is produced by EntreFilmes in Brazil, Les Valseurs in France and Karõ Filmes in Portugal, with industry materials listing a budget of around €1 million. Ricardo Alves Jr. and Thiago Macêdo Correia are among the producers, while Germano Melo wrote the screenplay. Vasco Viana handles cinematography, with Mathilde Van de Moortel and Luisa Homem editing the film and Florencia Di Concilio composing the music.
Grace Passô leads a cast that also includes Jehnny Beth, Pedro Goifman, Elisa Lucinda, Eduardo Moreira, Bárbara Colen, Rômulo Braga, Babi Amaral, Ítalo Laureano and Rodger Rogério. The ensemble gives the film a strong dramatic foundation, with Grace Passô at the centre of a story that depends on the growing tension between Graça’s independence and the pressure surrounding her.
The film’s social concerns are central to its identity. Ricardo Alves Jr. began developing the project years ago, and its story has remained connected to questions around conservatism, intolerance and religious power in Brazil. Those concerns are not presented as a separate political discussion but through Graça’s increasingly difficult return home, allowing the thriller framework to carry the film’s larger ideas.
San Sebastián now represents the next major step for The French Teacher. Its selection in Horizontes Latinos places the film within a section focused on contemporary Latin American cinema, while the new Urban Sales and Les Valseurs partnership opens another route toward international distribution.
With its world premiere approaching, The French Teacher arrives with an established festival filmmaker, an international production team and a sales strategy already in place. More importantly, Ricardo Alves Jr.’s film brings its psychological tension and social questions together in one story, making its San Sebastián debut an important new stage in its journey beyond Brazil.