Though the movie opened Friday, its origins date to 1959, when the Brazilian film producer Lucy Barreto was invited to a luncheon at Samambaia, the mountain estate near Rio de Janeiro where Bishop and Macedo Soares lived. Prominent Brazilian poets and politicians were among the guests, and the house itself was decorated with paintings and sculpture by renowned artists, but it was the hostesses who left her with her most vivid memory.  âWhat impressed me was the intimacy and complicity between the two of them,â Ms. Barreto recalled recently. âAt times, one would be on one side of the room and the second on the other side, in different conversations. But one would look at the other with a half-smile, and you could see they were in constant communication. It was something very special, and I never forgot it.â  So when, in 1995, the Brazilian writer Carmen Oliveira published âRare and Commonplace Flowers,â a Portuguese-language book about Bishop and Macedo Soares and their years together that was later translated into English, Ms. Barreto immediately bought the film rights. By then, both Bishop and Macedo Soares, usually just called Lota, were dead, but their romance, lived out discreetly, had retrospectively become a symbol of lesbian pride and autonomy.  At a low point creatively, Bishop, reserved by nature, full of self-doubt and battling a drinking problem, had arrived in Rio in 1951, intending to spend just a few days. But she met Lota, domineering and outgoing, quickly moved in with her and ended up staying nearly 20 years in Brazil, where she produced work that won her both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Posthumously, Bishop has also become a cultural talisman in Brazil, her work increasingly read and admired by the intellectual elite there.  To direct the story of the two women Ms. Barreto wanted her son Bruno, whose credits include the international hit âDona Flor and Her Two Husbandsâ (1978) and the Oscar-nominated âFour Days in Septemberâ (1997). But it would take more than a decade to convince him, and several more years before she could raise the $6 million the film ultimately cost and assemble a cast that includes Miranda Otto as Bishop and GlÃ³ria Pires as Lota.  Mr. Barreto said that when his mother first sent him the Oliveira book, he dutifully read it, but the obvious story of Bishop in Brazil and the clash of cultures didnât interest him enough to sign on. âThe last thing I wanted to make was another film about a tortured artist,â he said. âI hate those films. Iâve seen them, and I am always very bored.â  Nearly a decade ago, though, the actress Amy Irving, then his wife, saw âA Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop,â a one-character Brazilian play that she decided to perform in an English-language version. As Ms. Irving researched the role, he paid close attention to the information she was accumulating and, he said, âbegan to think there was something to be told there.â  But the real turning point came when he started to read Bishopâs poetry. He found her 1950s poems about Brazil to be âso up-to-date that itâs as if sheâs writing about today,â he said. He was particularly moved by the well-known âOne Art,â which begins: âThe art of losing isnât hard to master;/so many things seemed filled with the intent/to be lost that their loss is no disaster.â  Mr. Barreto said: âFor me, if Iâm going to tell the story, itâs about loss, how if you want to win, you also have to know how to lose. It has since dawned on me that I really found the angle for the story when I was getting divorced from Amy. That was a big loss, losing her.â  From the beginning, Ms. Barreto had also been clear on who should play Lota: Ms. Pires, a popular telenovela star in Brazil who has also acted in films, including âO Quatrilhoâ (1995) which was directed by Mr. Barretoâs brother FÃ¡bio and was nominated for an Oscar. Ms. Pires said she had never heard of Lota when Ms. Barreto approached her in 1995, but was fascinated by the Oliveira book and waited patiently, year after year, as Ms. Barreto tried to get the film off the ground.  âI think that in this case, time was helpful, because it allowed me to mature as a woman and mature as an artist,â she said. âAnd as I was working on other projects over the years, this story was always echoing in my head. Every time I thought about it, I could visualize the script I had received in the beginning, and keep on thinking about these two women and the family nucleus they created. I needed that time, because while thereâs a lot of material about Bishop available, thereâs very little about Lota.â  Ms. Otto came to the film in exactly the opposite way: in a hurry and almost at the last minute. She was working on a film in Melbourne, Australia, one weekend early last year when she received an email with the script and an invitation to play Bishop. The email also asked for a commitment to begin shooting in a couple of months and, she recalled, for a response within 48 hours.  âSo I read the script and couldnât believe my luck,â she said. âThese were two women who were strong and intelligent and passionate, living such a modern, uncompromised life. To get something as rich as that, itâs not easy to find. And Iâd never been to South America and always wanted to go to Rio.â  To prepare, Ms. Otto took a crash course in all things Bishop. She said she read âRemembering Elizabeth Bishop: An Oral Biographyâ that was âa gold mine of anecdotes and different peopleâs impressions of her, some favorable and others not so favorable,â and listened closely to recordings of Bishop reading her poems. (Shortly before shooting started, Ms. Pires also found a book, Nadia Nogueiraâs âSelf-Inventions in Love Stories: Lota Macedo Soares and Elizabeth Bishop,â that gave her the information she felt she had been lacking as she tried to shape her portrayal of Lota.)  Ms. Otto said that Bishop was so intensely private that âIâm sure she would be absolutely appalledâ at the idea of a film about her relationship with Lota. But âReaching for the Moonâ is also about the way the balance of power can sometimes shift in a relationship. As Mr. Barreto noted, Bishop, âa dysfunctional alcoholic and drifter, becomes stronger,â while Lota becomes weaker and more obsessed, both with Bishop and with a massive public works project in Rio under her stewardship. âSo thereâs a reversal of roles.â  In Brazil, where the film opened in August, âReaching for the Moonâ has been an art-house success. But it has also encountered difficulty in getting access to cineplexes, with some critics and bloggers describing it as a gay romance and others focusing on the political infighting surrounding Lotaâs largely forgotten role in creating Flamengo Park, a huge bayside esplanade and commons that has become one of Rioâs signature attractions. But the Barretos cautioned that it would be a mistake to take so narrow a view. âItâs a mainstream film,â Ms. Barreto said.  Mr. Barreto added: âItâs not a biopic, and itâs not a gay love story. Itâs just a love story.â He continued, âI didnât want it to be Bishopâs story or Lotaâs story. Itâs both their stories, and I think I have achieved that balance. But it was hard, very hard.â
âReaching for the Moon,â a film about the romance of Elizabeth Bishop and Carlota de Macedo Soares, was a long time coming.