Filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho, who is making his third go-round here in Competition at Cannes with the highly lauded The Secret Agent, is elated to be part of a big comeback for Brazilian cinema.
But it’s not all roses.
Just this year alone the country has hit two home runs with Oscar winner I’m Still Here as well as The Blue Trail taking the Silver Bear Jury Prize at Berlin.
As far as the surge in output, peg it to a post Covid ramp-up in production, Filho said.
“We’re back with an expressive series of feature films — I have never seen such a diverse cinema,” said the director, “but that number creates another problem.
“We have to clean up our act,” he emphasized. “Brazil has to be better organized and has to consider the streaming market.”
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“I have nothing against streaming, per se, and I’m very pleased that this movie after appearing in theaters and other windows will be seen on streaming platforms.”
He advocated for a government policy, particularly when it comes to exhibition. Tickets should be “at affordable prices. It shouldn’t cost you 110 euros with popcorn to see a film. Some films are seen by thousands and thousands, and other films are only screened in movie theaters which are upper class where the chips are scented with truffles.”
For some Hollywood studios, despite the immense amount of box office in Brazil for tentpoles, the country’s infrastructure of exhibition is in continual need of reshaping to keep in step with its immense population of 212 million.
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Filho’s biggest production yet, The Secret Agent, follows a mysterious young tech guy Marcel (Wagner Moura from Narcos), who is returning to a small city in order to get closer to his young son after losing his wife to pneumonia. What he discovers in the film set in 1977 Recife is a town under siege at Carnival time by criminal elements in the country, which is being run by a dictatorship and losing the chance for a better life under the ruling class. Read Deadline’s review here.
For Moura, the movie repped a chance to make one in his native Brazil, particularly in Portuguese. And of course, there’s Filho. “If he made Little Red Riding Hood, I’d be willing to be in that film,” beamed the actor.
For Filho, “what motivated me most when I made this film is that my country Brazil has amnesia and a loss of memory.”
He’s specifically talking about the military dictatorship that was in place from 1964-85.
“Compounded by the amnesty in ’79 and proposed by the government since 1964, Brazil committed endless acts of violence against its civilian population and caused psychological trauma among the population,” said Filho. “It became normal to commit all sorts of violent crimes. You could wipe the slate clean with a sponge and look toward the future. It wasn’t always nice to talk about certain things.
“I believe we had to speak about these times. This idea of memory and retaining memories is a very powerful theme,” the filmmaker added.
“In the space of a year, Brazil came out with two movies which talk about historic memory of a recent past which has a definite impact on the world today, and our lives today,” Filho said. “That’s what you see in Secret Agent.”
M2 is selling the movie here at Cannes.
The post ‘The Secret Agent’ Director On Brazil’s Cinema Boom & What Needs To Be Fixed: “We Have To Clean Up Our Act” appeared first on Deadline.
