The Odyssey of the South Atlantic: Carlos Saldanha Brings Amyr Klink’s "100 Days" to the Big Screen

It took the legendary Brazilian explorer Amyr Klink exactly one hundred days to navigate the treacherous waters of the South Atlantic in a custom-built rowboat in 1984. It took director Carlos Saldanha nearly three thousand days—nearly a decade of meticulous planning, script development, and technical innovation—to translate that singular feat of human endurance into a cinematic experience.

As the curtains rise for the closing gala of this year’s Rio Film Festival, the industry is witnessing more than just a premiere; it is the culmination of a decade-long creative voyage for one of Brazil’s most successful exports to Hollywood. Saldanha, the visionary behind global animated sensations like Ice Age, Rio, and Ferdinand, has finally brought his ambitious live-action project, 100 Days, to the audiences it was designed to captivate.

The Genesis of an Epic: From Page to Screen

The film is a direct adaptation of Klink’s seminal memoir, One Hundred Days Between Sky and Sea, a book that served as a formative pillar of Brazilian literature and adventure. For Saldanha, the project was a homecoming in more ways than one. When veteran producer Paula Consenza first approached him with the manuscript prior to the global pandemic, the director was at a crossroads in his career, wrapping up work on Ferdinand and harboring a long-held ambition to transition into live-action storytelling.

"When this project came to me, I thought it was a great coincidence because I love the book," Saldanha reflects. "It was a very formative read in my teenage years. When I got the script, I reread the book and loved it even more. I knew it deserved a big cinema treatment."

The development process was not without its hurdles. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic effectively stalled the momentum of the production, but in retrospect, it provided the creative team—including co-writers Elena Soarez and Thais Tavares—the breathing room necessary to deepen the narrative. Saldanha was clear from the outset: he did not want to produce a standard survival procedural. Instead, he wanted to map the internal topography of a man pushed to the absolute edge of human isolation.

"To me, it wasn’t enough to just tell the tale of this hundred-day adventure," the director explains. "I was very interested in what was going on in Amyr’s head, what he did while he spent such a long time rowing all by himself, all alone in the sea."

Chronology of a Masterpiece: A Decade in Development

The timeline of 100 Days mirrors the intensity of the journey it depicts. Following the initial acquisition of the rights and the early drafting phases, the project faced the logistical paralysis of 2020. However, this period was utilized for in-depth research. Saldanha spent countless hours in consultation with Klink himself, as well as the explorer’s family and close confidants.

• Pre-Production (2016–2019): Concept development and the pursuit of a script that captured both the physical ordeal and the philosophical weight of the journey.
• The Pandemic Pivot (2020–2021): Refinement of the screenplay and the expansion of the emotional arc, focusing on Klink’s psychological state.
• Casting and Physical Preparation (2022): The intensive search for the lead and the securing of key supporting roles.
• Principal Photography (2023): Filming occurred across two distinct phases: open-ocean sequences and highly controlled, state-of-the-art water tank shoots.
• Post-Production (2024–2026): A massive, international effort involving visual effects teams in São Paulo and Finland to create the realistic, terrifying scale of the Atlantic.

The Architecture of the Cast: Synergy and Authenticity

Casting was the linchpin of the film’s success. Given the claustrophobic nature of the story, the emotional weight rested almost entirely on the shoulders of the lead. Saldanha found his Amyr Klink in Filipe Bragança, whose commitment to the role bordered on the extreme.

"We had a very interesting casting process because it’s a fairly small ensemble, so they all had to be in synergy," says Saldanha. "Filipe was incredible. He is very studious and dedicated. We met for coffee, and it was love at first sight. He worked so hard for the role; he went on a strict diet, he watched every single Amyr video, he read and reread the book… And the result speaks for itself."

Supporting Bragança is the acclaimed French actress Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, known for her role in Emily in Paris. Her involvement was a stroke of serendipity. The production required an actress who could capture the specific nuance of Klink’s Swedish-born mother, Asa, while also possessing near-perfect fluency in Portuguese. "She came to Brazil for two weeks to shoot, and it was wonderful," Saldanha notes. "She looks a lot like Amyr’s mother, so it felt just right."

The cast is rounded out by Felipe Camargo and João Silva, who portray Klink’s father and brother, respectively, grounding the explorer’s solitary mission in the warmth of the family he left behind on the shore.

Technical Innovation: Building the Atlantic

Perhaps the most significant challenge in the production of 100 Days was the technical execution of the water sequences. A "blockbuster" feel required a level of immersion that simple location shooting could not provide. The production team constructed a massive water tank, a "learning curve" that became the engine of the film’s visual language.

"It was the first time we were working with a tank that big, and we were learning as we went," Saldanha admits. While the crew spent a week filming on the open ocean, the volatile nature of the sea made the tank essential for capturing the night sequences and the harrowing storm scenes that define the film’s climax.

This technical ambition extended into post-production, where a complex, international co-production model was employed. By splitting the visual effects workload between teams in São Paulo and Finland, the film achieved a level of polish that rivals major international studio productions. The result is a film that captures the terrifying majesty of the ocean—a character in its own right.

Official Perspectives: The Director’s Homecoming

For Carlos Saldanha, 100 Days represents a profound shift. After decades of shaping the aesthetic of American animation, his return to the Brazilian market is not merely a project—it is a reclamation.

"With Netflix’s Invisible City and 100 Days, I began breaking the barriers I had within the Brazilian film industry," he says. "I didn’t know that many people in the industry here, and I didn’t have a lot of experience working within the Brazilian market. This homecoming was such a wonderful opportunity."

Saldanha’s return is motivated by a desire to foster a local industry that is confident enough to tell its own stories. "I think we need to tell the stories of our heroes," he asserts. "We are used to watching foreign heroes on screen, but we need to see ourselves reflected in our cinema and understand we, too, have heroes—this is a heartwarming thought for me."

Implications for Brazilian Cinema

The release of 100 Days carries significant weight for the South American film landscape. By bridging the gap between high-concept, technically demanding filmmaking and local, culturally significant subject matter, the project sets a new benchmark for Brazilian production houses like Ventre Studio, Boipeba Filmes, and O2 Post.

The distribution partnership with The Walt Disney Company’s Buena Vista International further underscores the global ambition of the film. It signals that Brazilian cinema is capable of producing stories that possess both local intimacy and universal, big-screen appeal.

As the film prepares for its general release following the Rio Film Festival, the industry is watching closely. If 100 Days succeeds, it may well provide a blueprint for future co-productions that utilize both local talent and global technical expertise. For Saldanha, however, the success is measured in simpler terms: the audience’s connection to the screen.

"I am hoping Brazilian audiences will watch the film in cinemas because it was made for cinemas," he says. "The film has a lot of big adventure elements, so I think people will enjoy seeing that on the big screen."

At the closing gala of the Rio Film Festival, the director will finally be able to step back and let the story of the man who rowed alone across the sea reach its final destination: the eyes and hearts of the public. It is a story of grit, of the sea, and of a director finally finding his way home.