The animation called “They Shot the Piano Player” centers on a journalist from New York who sets out to investigate the story of “Tenório Jr,” a Brazilian piano prodigy who has vanished. The story appears to be inspired by the disappearance in 1976 of pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior. Jeff Goldblum is attached to voice the journalist.
The feature, currently in pre-production, is being financed by Film Constellation, a production, financing, and sales company based in London, U.K. This is its first animated project.
The company describes They Shot the Piano Player as “a celebratory origin story” of the bossa nova movement that “captures a fleeting time bursting with creative freedom at a turning point in Latin American history in the 1960s and 1970s, just before the continent was engulfed by totalitarian regimes.” The film will feature the music of Brazilian icons like João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Vinicius de Moraes, and Paulo Moura.
They Shot the Piano Player is produced by Cristina Huete of Spain’s Trueba PC (Chico & Rita) and Valérie Schermann of France’s Prima Linea (The Red Turtle). The executive producers are Nano Arrieta and Film Constellation’s Fabien Westerhoff. It was Westerhoff who handled sales for Chico & Rita while working for another company, Hanway Films.