‘BRAZIL’ WILL GET 1-WEEK RUN IN L.A.

“Brazil,” which won three awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. on Saturday despite not having been commercially released, will be given a one-week run in a Los Angeles theater beginning Dec. 25 in order to qualify for the 1985 Academy Awards.

Universal Pictures’ chairman Frank Price announced Monday that “Brazil” also will be released for one week in New York on Dec. 25 and that the studio will schedule a series of private screenings for members of the motion picture academy.

“Brazil,” the source of a months-long feud between director Terry Gilliam and Sidney Sheinberg, president of Universal’s parent MCA Inc., won critics awards Saturday for best picture, best director and best screenplay.

The rift between Gilliam and Sheinberg began last summer when Sheinberg rejected Gilliam’s second version of “Brazil.” Gilliam refused to cooperate on further editing and publicly accused Sheinberg of insisting on changes that would have sabotaged his original themes. Sheinberg said he only wanted to make the film more accessible to audiences, and that he planned to test the studio’s version with Gilliam’s before deciding which to release.

Last week, Sheinberg relented, saying that the film maker’s public campaign against the studio’s unfinished version makes it commercially impractical to procede with it and that Universal would release Gilliam’s final cut early next year.

The studio’s statement Monday congratulated Gilliam and producer Arnon Milchan for the awards, and set the film’s regular release for Feb. 14.