Heitor Dhalia is preparing to work on a massive Brazilian project for Netflix…
The 52-year-old Brazilian director and screenwriter, considered one of Brazil’s foremost and most ambitious movie auteurs, is teaming up with Netflix on “DNA do Crime,” a banner title for the U.S. streaming giant in Brazil, one of its largest international markets.
Described by Dhalia as “one of the biggest series ever produced in Brazil,” the eight-part scripted skein, which goes into production on October 31, turns on a heist of epic proportions, which takes place on the Brazil-Paraguay border.
When federal police officers are called in to investigate, they discover “the beginning of a thread that unravels, like no other, the construction of crime in the country,” the synopsis runs.
“The series will try to open a new paradigm for the genre,” Dhalia told Variety. “It also talks about the tragic flaws in all of us, our deep nature,” he added.
Inspired by true events, DNA do Crime is created by Dhalia. Its initial idea was developed by Dhalia, Leonardo Levis and editor-scribe Bernardo Barcellos. It’s produced by Paranoid Filmes, Dhalia’s label, and Netflix Brazil.
Dhalia will oversee the general direction of the series and its production along with Netflix. Screenwriters are Barcellos and Bruno Passeri, “both extremely talented and with a lot of experience in the genre,” Dhalia commented.
Admired arthouse auteur Aly Muritiba, a specialist in pivoting point of view, collaborated on first stage development, as did Levis. The writers’ room includes David Kobi, Rosana Rodini, Mariana Vielmond, Eduardo Melo and Juaar.
Dhalia broke out with his second feature, Drained (2006) a dramedy of obsession, with Selton Mello, then directed daughter-father relationship Adrift, with Vincent Cassel, selected for Cannes Film Festival’s 2009 Un Certain Regard. After English-language abduction thriller Gone, with Amanda Seyfried, he took another change of direction co-writing and directing Bald Mountain (2013), an epic-scale Western tinged gangster movie of friendship riven by the greed and corruption set in 1980 at Sierra Pelada, the biggest hell-on earth open pit mine in modern history, in the Amazon jungle.
From what Dhalia told Variety, DNA do Crime looks set to inherit that film’s ambition. Foreseeably it will also take on some of his kinetic style in action scenes.