Hollywood in the Brazilian outback

A young actress in costume on a star-marked staircase at the entrance of a thematic cinema installation in Cabaceiras. — Dado Galdieri/The New York Times

THE actors stepping in front of the ­camera were amateurs, but hardly new to show business.

A bearded rancher had played a bounty hunter in a Western-style action flick. A soft-spoken cook had moonlighted as a dancer in an art-house drama. And a ­chatty grandmother who made her ­silver-screen debut in a comedy more than two decades ago.