Variações, a film co-written by alumna Karen Sztajnberg ’06, became the single most watched feature film in Portugal this year. It reached about 49,000 viewers on its opening weekend and grossed 271.000 euros in box office revenue. Variações marks Sztajnberg's second narrative feature film writing credit.
The film stars Sérgio Praia and is a biopic about António Variações, a famous Portuguese pop rock singer from the 80’s who died from AIDS-related complications in 1984.
According to Cineuropa, “Variações is an honest cinematic homage to António Variações, a love letter from João Maia to one of the biggest icons in the Portuguese music scene, and indeed to his entire audience. A letter that will not fall into disgrace: this promising film will most probably continue to resonate through time.”
Karen Sztajnberg is a writer, director, editor and visual storyteller from Brazil. She straddles many mediums pursuing her relentless fascination with how stories get doled out with text and images. She seeks to pull people out of passive viewership in her video-art installations: Room Tone ’17, The Narrative of Inadequacy ’12-17, Manifactotum ’15. Other works aims to temper classical narrative storytelling’s elegance with deliberate cracks: Casa Grande, Rotterdam Film Festival ’14 and Pears, Maryland Film Festival ’14.
