Founded in 1994 by filmmaker Eugenio Puppo and based in São Paulo, Heco Produções has established itself as a leading production company in Brazil by combining the making of fiction and documentary films with initiatives to preserve and disseminate Brazil's film heritage. Heco's projects place particular emphasis on the research stage and are guided by a commitment to independent cinema, to urgent narratives with socio-political impact, and to fostering new talent in audiovisual production.
Heco has produced a total of nine feature films and twenty-one short films, which have been screened and awarded at festivals in Brazil and abroad, including the Locarno Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), Torino Film Festival, Doclisboa, BAFICI, Sitges Film Festival, Brasília Film Festival, Havana Film Festival, Rio Film Festival, and the São Paulo International Film Festival. The company has also produced four television series, broadcast on Brazilian cable channels and on streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and Reserva Imovision.
Through the Corals Creative Hub, Heco is currently developing seven feature film projects, most of them fiction works conceived by young filmmakers of contemporary Brazilian cinema, under the creative leadership of Eugenio Puppo.
Alongside its film production, Heco works continuously to preserve and disseminate Brazil's film heritage. It has organized more than twenty national and international film series and retrospectives, producing dozens of new film prints and digital copies and restoring rare films, always accompanied by discussion series, lectures, exhibitions, and the publication of books and catalogs.
Reflecting its commitment to film preservation and dissemination, Heco Produções holds a catalog of 64 historic Brazilian films produced between the 1950s and the 2000s. It includes works by filmmakers such as Ozualdo R. Candeias (whose complete filmography Heco holds, along with a collection of more than 16,000 photographs and historical documents), Carlos Reichenbach, José Mojica Marins, Jean Garrett, Ody Fraga, Rogério Sganzerla, and others associated with Cinema Marginal and with film production in São Paulo's Boca do Lixo district. The company also holds the most significant works of Argentine filmmaker Carlos Hugo Christensen. These films circulate regularly in the most prestigious international circuits, with retrospectives and special screenings at institutions such as the American Cinematheque (United States), the British Film Institute (BFI, London), the Portuguese Cinematheque, the Museo Reina Sofía (Spain), the Korean Film Archive (Seoul), Filmhuis Cavia (Amsterdam), and IFFR (Rotterdam).
Heco created and organizes the Gostoso Film Festival, an annual festival now in its 13th edition, dedicated to contemporary Brazilian cinema and held outdoors on the beach in São Miguel do Gostoso, Rio Grande do Norte, in the country's Northeast region. Recognized as part of the state's cultural and tourism heritage, the festival has become one of Brazil's most important venues for film exhibition and education, bringing together screenings, debates, and training activities. It also offers technical audiovisual courses to young people from the region, an initiative that trains new filmmakers and helps shift the traditional center of film production in Brazil.