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Neon Bull
Neon Bull
	Film poster
Directed by	Gabriel Mascaro
Written by	Gabriel Mascaro
Produced by	Rachel Ellis
Starring	Juliano Cazarré ; Vinícius de Oliveira
Cinematography	Diego García
Edited by	Fernando Epstein; Eduardo Serrano
Music by	Otávio Santos; Cláudio N; Carlos Montenegro
Distributed by	Imovision
Release dates	4 September 2015 (Venice); 14 January 2016 (Brazil);
Running time	101 minutes
Country	Brazil
Language	Portuguese
Box office	$148,913

Neon Bull (Portuguese: Boi neon) is a 2015 Brazilian drama film directed by Gabriel Mascaro. The film premiered at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival and won the Horizons (Orizzonti) - Special Jury Prize. It was also shown in the Platform section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival,^[2] where it received an honorable mention from the jury.^[3] At the 31st Warsaw International Film Festival it received the main prize of the International Competition, the Warsaw Grand Prix.^[4]

Plot

Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) is a bull handler, working for a traveling group who transport bulls from rodeo to rodeo, who dreams of becoming a tailor and making fashionable clothing for women. He finds an outlet for his creativity making custom horse masks and provocative outfits for Galega (Maeve Jinkings), the group's driver who also performs sexually enticing dances for groups of men after each rodeo. They are accompanied by Galega's daughter, Cacá (Alyne Santana); and Zé (Carlos Pessoa), a buffoonish bull wrangler who is the butt of the other's jokes. The film deals mainly with the interactions between the members of this group, interspersed with Iremar's attempts to design clothing, and rodeo scenes. After an attempt by Iremar and Zé to steal valuable horse semen from a stud auction goes awry, Zé is offered a new job as a horse wrangler; he is replaced in the group by Junior (Vinícius de Oliveira) a young, attractive, and vain, but kind, man who befriends Cacá and becomes sexually involved with Galega. During a rodeo, Iremar meets Geise, a pregnant woman selling cologne and perfume from a large factory where she also works as a nighttime security guard. After the rodeo, Geise brings a bottle of cologne to Iremar as a gift. Later, at night, he visits her at the factory, where he is impressed by the industrial clothing machinery. She seduces him, whereupon they engage in sexual intercourse.

Cast

Juliano Cazarré as Iremar
Maeve Jinkings as Galega
Vinícius de Oliveira as Júnior
Alyne Santana as Cacá
Josinaldo Alves as Mário
Samya De Lavor as Geise
Carlos Pessoa as Zé
Abigail Pereira as Fabiana

Production

In the scene where Juliano Cazarré had to manually stimulate a horse, he was sure that Gabriel Mascaro had planned to use a prosthesis. Instead, when the director told him that he would have to actually touch the horse's penis, he refused to continue unless Mascaro did the same first. So in the end they both did the act.^[5]

The genuineness of the scene in which Juliano Cazarré had to have sex with Samya De Lavor, who was really 8 months pregnant, is disputed. Mascaro asked Cazarré to have an erection at the beginning of the scene.^[6] Cazarré said the sex was simulated.^[7] Director Mascaro said he was standing far from the action, so he could not see and he did not ask the actors how they performed it, but he admitted the result "is very persuasive" and done in only one take.^[8] More, talking about the camera position, he said that "The sex scene with the pregnant woman, if we were one step ahead, it would become a totally porn film".^[9]

Release

The feature film had its first worldwide screening on 3 September 2015, at Venice Festival. Its first Brazilian session took place at the Rio Festival on 4 October, where it won four awards. The film reached the Brazilian commercial circuit in January 2016.

Reception

Critical response

Neon Bull earned critical acclaim upon release. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 88% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Neon Bull's hypnotic visual poetry occasionally borders on exploitation, though its reflective nature softens its animalistic gaze."^[10] On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 80 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[11] It is ranked at number 60 on the "Best Movies of 2016" list.^[12]

Accolades

Year	Group/Award	Category	Recipient	Result
2015	Venice International Film Festival	Horizons (Orizzonti) – Best Film	Gabriel Mascaro	Nominated
2015	Venice International Film Festival	Horizons (Orizzonti) - Special Jury Prize	Gabriel Mascaro	Won
2015	Toronto International Film Festival	Platform – Best Film	Gabriel Mascaro	Nominated
2015	Toronto International Film Festival	Platform - Special Mention	Gabriel Mascaro	Won
2015	Festival do Rio	Best Film	Gabriel Mascaro	Won
2015	Festival do Rio	Best Screenplay	Gabriel Mascaro	Won
2015	Festival do Rio	Best Cinematography	Diego Garcia	Won
2015	Festival do Rio	Best Supporting Actress	Alyne Santa	Won
2015	Filmfest Hamburg	FIPRESCI Award	Gabriel Mascaro	Won
2015	Adelaide Film Festival	Feature Fiction Award^[13]	Gabriel Mascaro	Won