Allan Deberton and Lázaro Ramos Discuss Tender Brazilian Queer Youth Drama ‘Gugu’s World,’ Launch Clip Ahead of Berlin Premiere (EXCLUSIVE)
Under the scalding hot sun of the Brazilian northeast, a group of young boys kicks dirt up while running over a football. All but one, Gugu, whose energy is directed elsewhere: a pompous dance number by the sidelines of the improvised field. Allan Deberton’s “Gugu’s World,” world premiering at the Berlin Film Festival, follows the titular boy to build a poignant look at the difficulties of childhood for those who don’t quite fit in.
The tender drama enlists some heavyweights alongside newcomer Yugi Gomes as Gugu. “Madame Satã” star Lázaro Ramos plays the boy’s father, while veteran Teca Pereira (“Divine Love”) plays Gugu’s glamorous grandmother Dilma, whose bustling social life is painfully upended by rapidly escalating dementia. “The Secret Agent” breakout Carlos Francisco also has a small role as Dilma’s affair. Watch an exclusive clip from the film below.
Speaking with Variety ahead of the film’s Berlin premiere, Deberton says the film was born out of a “very personal memory” of his screenwriter, André Araújo. The duo previously collaborated on Deberton’s directorial debut, “Pacarrete,” about a retired dance teacher who dreams of starring in a big and bold dance spectacle in front of her whole small town.
“I quickly found myself inside that same emotional territory,” he recalls of the earlier stages of the creative process. “The two of us are from the same hometown, born in Russas, in the countryside of Ceará, in Northeastern Brazil, and we were both ‘different,’ ‘out-of-place’ kids, raised for much of our childhood by our grandmothers. The film’s energy comes from those memories of affection and vulnerability, from that space where care can be both shelter and the fear of losing it.”
The writing duo took their script to several writing labs, eventually partnering with Biônica Filmes through Projeto Paradiso’s fruitful Incubator initiative that also originated another buzzy Brazilian Berlin premiere, Grace Passô’s “Our Secret.”
Casting the right child as Gugu was essential to the success of the process, and Deberton saw over 600 kids during the extensive casting process. “We were looking for a child with a rare combination: fragility and strength, sweetness and a very alive inner energy. Yuri Gomes came with all of that. He can hold emotion without performing emotion, and he makes silence feel alive, which was essential to the film’s language.”
The director adds that having Pereira was a “dream” from the very early days of the writing process. “The grandmother needed to be an entire universe,” he adds, recalling how the actor’s “contagious presence” was unforgettable to him since watching her onstage during a Brazilian production of Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.” As for Ramos, Deberton says his presence in the film came in “a surprising way.”
“When he watched ‘Pacarrete’ at its Brazilian premiere, he told me he’d like to work together,” he points out. “He’s a Brazilian icon, I’m a huge fan, and his interest felt like a gift. The character Batista was developed especially for him. We knew Lázaro could make him complex, human, contradictory, shaped by fear and social pressure.”
Ramos tells Variety he was drawn to Deberton as a creative collaborator due to the “sensitive perspective” he showed as a director. As for “Gugu’s World,” the actor feels it “resonates” with other major films in his career, such as Karim Aïnouz’s “Madame Satã” and Sérgio Machado’s “Lower City,” in which he acted alongside longtime best friend and collaborator Wagner Moura. “Here, I play a character who builds a tender relationship with the child protagonist, someone who has a lot to say to the world. It’s humanist cinema in the way I love it most.”
Asked about acting alongside a young newcomer from a veteran point of view, Ramos immediately praises Gomes, calling him “extraordinarily talented.” “He comes from a project in Bahia that I care about very much, Projeto Axé, which for years has been offering art to children in that region of Salvador,” he adds. “When he came to the film, he felt both identification with and rejection toward the character, and it was fascinating to watch. I think these are rare moments when the character chooses its actor. And it was very clear to me from the start that this character wanted to be played by Yuri.”
As for how he feels seeing the success of his longtime friend and collaborator Moura, who recently became the first ever Brazilian to be nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for “The Secret Agent,” Ramos says he feels “an enormous sense of pride.”
This pride extends to director Kleber Mendonça Filho and other major exponents of Brazilian Northeastern cinema, like Gabriel Mascaro and Karim Aïnouz, whom he calls “people who are truly thinking about cinematic language.” “After the pandemic, to survive in the market, there was a tendency to make films that didn’t really investigate what Brazilian cinema’s language is, or what stories we want to tell,” adds the actor, who is also a director behind successful films such as “Executive Order.”
“I’m happy for my friend Wagner, with whom I’ve made so many films, and for Kleber as well,” he goes on. “I feel that 2026 and 2027 will be very beautiful years. Films that can attract audiences while still keeping one foot firmly planted in their identity are a very important path for our cinema, and I hope it continues. It’s also what I’m pursuing in my own upcoming projects, both as an actor and as a director.”
Speaking of the future, both Ramos and Deberton are already working on directorial follow-ups. The “Gugu’s World” director is preparing “The Adoption,” while Ramos is working on a project still under wraps — but he says it feels “right” to be in Berlin “to gather inspiration for what’s next.”
“‘The Adoption’ is a very intimate project for me,” says Deberton. “I’m an adoptive father, and at the time, I was a single father adopting a child. It was an experience that profoundly changed me, and it also changed Marcelo, my partner, who became a father too. I borrowed some of the feelings from that experience and placed them into a film, which is already shot, with an incredible Brazilian cast.”
“Gugu’s World” is produced by Biônica Filmes and Deberton Filmes. M-Appeal handles world sales.
The tender drama enlists some heavyweights alongside newcomer Yugi Gomes as Gugu. “Madame Satã” star Lázaro Ramos plays the boy’s father, while veteran Teca Pereira (“Divine Love”) plays Gugu’s glamorous grandmother Dilma, whose bustling social life is painfully upended by rapidly escalating dementia. “The Secret Agent” breakout Carlos Francisco also has a small role as Dilma’s affair. Watch an exclusive clip from the film below.
Speaking with Variety ahead of the film’s Berlin premiere, Deberton says the film was born out of a “very personal memory” of his screenwriter, André Araújo. The duo previously collaborated on Deberton’s directorial debut, “Pacarrete,” about a retired dance teacher who dreams of starring in a big and bold dance spectacle in front of her whole small town.
“I quickly found myself inside that same emotional territory,” he recalls of the earlier stages of the creative process. “The two of us are from the same hometown, born in Russas, in the countryside of Ceará, in Northeastern Brazil, and we were both ‘different,’ ‘out-of-place’ kids, raised for much of our childhood by our grandmothers. The film’s energy comes from those memories of affection and vulnerability, from that space where care can be both shelter and the fear of losing it.”
The writing duo took their script to several writing labs, eventually partnering with Biônica Filmes through Projeto Paradiso’s fruitful Incubator initiative that also originated another buzzy Brazilian Berlin premiere, Grace Passô’s “Our Secret.”
Casting the right child as Gugu was essential to the success of the process, and Deberton saw over 600 kids during the extensive casting process. “We were looking for a child with a rare combination: fragility and strength, sweetness and a very alive inner energy. Yuri Gomes came with all of that. He can hold emotion without performing emotion, and he makes silence feel alive, which was essential to the film’s language.”
The director adds that having Pereira was a “dream” from the very early days of the writing process. “The grandmother needed to be an entire universe,” he adds, recalling how the actor’s “contagious presence” was unforgettable to him since watching her onstage during a Brazilian production of Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.” As for Ramos, Deberton says his presence in the film came in “a surprising way.”
“When he watched ‘Pacarrete’ at its Brazilian premiere, he told me he’d like to work together,” he points out. “He’s a Brazilian icon, I’m a huge fan, and his interest felt like a gift. The character Batista was developed especially for him. We knew Lázaro could make him complex, human, contradictory, shaped by fear and social pressure.”
Ramos tells Variety he was drawn to Deberton as a creative collaborator due to the “sensitive perspective” he showed as a director. As for “Gugu’s World,” the actor feels it “resonates” with other major films in his career, such as Karim Aïnouz’s “Madame Satã” and Sérgio Machado’s “Lower City,” in which he acted alongside longtime best friend and collaborator Wagner Moura. “Here, I play a character who builds a tender relationship with the child protagonist, someone who has a lot to say to the world. It’s humanist cinema in the way I love it most.”
Asked about acting alongside a young newcomer from a veteran point of view, Ramos immediately praises Gomes, calling him “extraordinarily talented.” “He comes from a project in Bahia that I care about very much, Projeto Axé, which for years has been offering art to children in that region of Salvador,” he adds. “When he came to the film, he felt both identification with and rejection toward the character, and it was fascinating to watch. I think these are rare moments when the character chooses its actor. And it was very clear to me from the start that this character wanted to be played by Yuri.”
As for how he feels seeing the success of his longtime friend and collaborator Moura, who recently became the first ever Brazilian to be nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for “The Secret Agent,” Ramos says he feels “an enormous sense of pride.”
This pride extends to director Kleber Mendonça Filho and other major exponents of Brazilian Northeastern cinema, like Gabriel Mascaro and Karim Aïnouz, whom he calls “people who are truly thinking about cinematic language.” “After the pandemic, to survive in the market, there was a tendency to make films that didn’t really investigate what Brazilian cinema’s language is, or what stories we want to tell,” adds the actor, who is also a director behind successful films such as “Executive Order.”
“I’m happy for my friend Wagner, with whom I’ve made so many films, and for Kleber as well,” he goes on. “I feel that 2026 and 2027 will be very beautiful years. Films that can attract audiences while still keeping one foot firmly planted in their identity are a very important path for our cinema, and I hope it continues. It’s also what I’m pursuing in my own upcoming projects, both as an actor and as a director.”
Speaking of the future, both Ramos and Deberton are already working on directorial follow-ups. The “Gugu’s World” director is preparing “The Adoption,” while Ramos is working on a project still under wraps — but he says it feels “right” to be in Berlin “to gather inspiration for what’s next.”
“‘The Adoption’ is a very intimate project for me,” says Deberton. “I’m an adoptive father, and at the time, I was a single father adopting a child. It was an experience that profoundly changed me, and it also changed Marcelo, my partner, who became a father too. I borrowed some of the feelings from that experience and placed them into a film, which is already shot, with an incredible Brazilian cast.”
“Gugu’s World” is produced by Biônica Filmes and Deberton Filmes. M-Appeal handles world sales.