Festival de Gramado

The Gramado Film Festival (Portuguese: Festival de Gramado) is an international film festival held annually in the Brazilian city of Gramado, Rio Grande do Sul, since 1973. Since 1992 it also gives awards to Latin American films produced outside Brazil. It is the biggest film festival in the country.

History

Officialized by the National Cinema Institute (Instituto Nacional de Cinema - INC) on January 1973, the Gramado Film Festival was originally launched at the Hydrangeas Festivity (Festa das Hortênsias), where film exhibitions were promoted between 1969 and 1971. The efforts of the artistic community, the press, the tourists, and the locals made the initiative an official event. By the 1980s it was already the most important film festival of Brazil.

Awards

Currently the festival awards films in 24 categories (13 for Brazilian films, 8 for international films, and three special awards). Its awards are called "Kikitos". It is the name of the 13 inches statuette created by artisan Elisabeth Rosenfeld, which is given to the awards winners.

Gramado

Gramado is a municipality and small tourist town, southeast of Caxias do Sul and east of Nova Petrópolis in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, in the Serra Gaúcha region. The town was originally settled by Azorean descendants and later received a contingent of German and Italian immigrants. Gramado is one of the towns along the scenic route known as Rota Romântica (Romantic Route).

History

Gramado was originally settled in 1875 by Portuguese immigrants. Five years later, the first German immigrants arrived and these were followed shortly after by Italian immigrants from the Italian settlements in Caxias do Sul.

In 1913, the town seat was moved to Linha Nova, the location of the present-day town center. At this time, Gramado was an unincorporated township within the municipality of Taquara. A railway arrived in Gramado in 1921, boosting the local economy. Gramado officially became a village in 1937, when Gramado was already known as a summer holiday resort. Gramado became a municipality on December 15, 1954 by force of State Act 2,522.