Trailer: Venice Film Festival winner ‘7 Prisoners’
Netflix has released the first trailer for the Venice Film Festival-winning film 7 Prisoners, from writer-director Alexandre Moratto.
18-year-old Mateus (Christian Malheiros) hopes to provide a better life for his working-class family in the countryside. Accepting a new job in São Paolo, he is shuttled into the city with a handful of other teenage boys from his town, unaware of what awaits them: exhausting work in a scrapyard and their identity cards seized by a vicious taskmaster and exploiter, Luca (Rodrigo Santoro), who threatens them with the unthinkable if they try to escape.
Venice Review: Netflix’s ‘7 Prisoners’ is a tension-filled tale of morality [Grade: B+]
Torn from the dark side of today’s economic desperation, 7 Prisoners is a tense thriller, one that deepens into a masterful study of power, solidarity and betrayal. Produced by the Oscar-nominated filmmakers Fernando Meirelles (City of God) and Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger), the film is the second feature from Brazilian writer-director Alexandre Moratto (Sócrates).
At the 78th Venice International Film Festival, 7 Prisoners received the Sorriso Diverso Venezia Award for Best Foreign Film and an honorable mention from the Fondazione Fai Persona Lavoro Ambiente. It will be in select theaters and globally on Netflix this November. Here is the first trailer.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- 2027 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (May) - May 7, 2026
- Colman Domingo to Receive Variety Creative Conscience Award at 50th San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline50) - May 6, 2026
- Winners Announced for Golden Gate, Audience Awards of the 69th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) - May 6, 2026
2027 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (May) 
Colman Domingo to Receive Variety Creative Conscience Award at 50th San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline50) 
Interview: Ildikó Enyedi on Working with Tony Leung and Léa Seydoux and Her Triptych Storytelling in ‘Silent Friend’