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Kleber Mendonça Filho’s documentary Pictures of Ghosts saw the Brazilian filmmaker reminiscing about the cinemas he frequented as a child and young adult in his coastal hometown of Recife. His latest, the propulsive thriller The Secret Agent, at first suggests a film from a bygone era, its ’70s-set tale of institutional corruption and surveillance recalling the likes of Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View.

The film, which begins with a title card that cheekily establishes the 1977 setting as “a time of great mischief,” hatches a byzantine plot centered around a widowed ex-tech researcher, Armando (Wagner Moura), who’s been reduced to living in hiding ever since...

“The Secret Agent,” which won Best Director and Best Actor (for Wagner Moura), will hit fall festivals like the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival before Neon opens the movie domestically on Nov. 26.

The official synopsis reads: “Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. He arrives in Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son but soon realizes that the city is far from being the non-violent refuge he seeks.”

The new trailer out Thursday, purposefully elliptical, is scored by an Ennio Morricone cue from Salvatore Samperi’s 1968 drama “Come Play With Me” and really sets the stage.

Six years since his last narrative feature Bacurau (we might call 2023’s Pictures of Ghosts a notable interlude) Kleber Mendonça Filho made a splashy return with The Secret Agent, which––more than its rave reviews––earned an ultra-rare two prizes at this year’s Cannes: Best Director and, for Wagner Moura, Best Actor. Ahead of its fall-festival run and theatrical release from Neon beginning November 26, the film’s U.S. teaser has arrived.

As Leonardo Goi said in his Cannes review, “Mendonça Filho’s gaze is far more receptive to the surreal, and his cinephilia winds up shaping the film’s style. Photographed by Evgenia Alexandrova in Panavision and rife with vintage wipe edits,...

Bearing out Brazil’s place as country of honor at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” (“O Agente Secreto”) won the Fipresci Prize in the Official Selection – Competition category, granted by the International Federation of Film Critics .

Set in Brazil under military rule in 1977 and starring Wagner Moura , the film delves into themes of political repression, morality and resistance. Known for his earlier films “Aquarius” and “Bacurau,” both of which played in main comoetition at Cannes, Mendonça Filho continues his exploration of Brazil’s sociopolitical landscape with a narrative praised for its depth and ambition.

“The Secret Agent” was hailed by Variety‘s Peter Debruge as a “terrific ’70s thriller” and “dazzling period drama.”

In its assessment of the film, the Fipresci jury explained: “We chose a film that has a novelistic, epic generosity; a film that allows for digression, diversion, humor and...

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, one of the more buzzy features to debut in Competition this year in Cannes, has been acquired by Mubi.

The streamer has picked up the film for the UK, Ireland, India, and Latin America, excluding Brazil.

The Secret Agent is led by Wagner Moura and also stars Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leon, Carlos Francisco, Alice Carvalho, and Hermila Guedes. The film was produced by Emilie Lesclaux. Co-producers include Nathanaël Karmitz, Elisha Karmitz, Fionnuala Jamison, Olivier Barbier, Leontine Petit, Erik Glijnis, Fred Burke, and Sol Bondy.

The film’s synopsis reads: Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. He arrives in Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son, but soon realizes that the city is far from being the non-violent refuge he seeks.

Filho is best known for his last fiction feature, Bacurau, which debuted...

Art house streamer and distributor Mubi has acquired The Secret Agent, from writer and director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Ghost Portrait, Bacurau, Aquarius), for the U.K., Ireland, India and Latin America, except for Brazil. The political thriller has been a standout in the Cannes Film Festival competition.

The Portuguese-language movie, about a technology expert returning to his hometown in 1977 to reunite with his young son and flee the country, premiered at Cannes on Sunday. The Secret Agent stars Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leon, Carlos Francisco, Alice Carvalho and Hermila Guedes.

Mubi will unveil release plans for the various territories in the near future. It struck the deal with MK2, which is handling international sales on the movie. Neon has acquired the film for North America.

The Secret Agent is set in Brazil in 1977. “Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run,” reads a synopsis.

Neon has acquired the North American rights to the political thriller The Secret Agent from writer and director Kleber Mendonça Filho.

The Portuguese language pic — about a technology expert returning to his hometown in 1977 to reunite with his young son and flee the country — premiered in competition in Cannes on Sunday, May 18. Neon is planning a North American theatrical release later this year.

The Secret Agent stars Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leon, Carlos Francisco, Alice Carvalho and Hermila Guedes.

Set in Recife, Brazil in 1977, the thriller follows Marcelo (Moura), a technology expert, as he is on the run from contract killers and federal officials. He arrives in Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son, only to find the city is unlikely to offer the refuge he seeks.

The Secret Agent is the Brazilian filmmaker’s third film to premiere In competition at Cannes, after Aquarius in 2016 and Bacurau,...

Filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian movie The Secret Agent, which has been rumored to be a finalist for the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or, is having its stateside rights scooped up by Neon. A theatrical release is in the works for this year.

If the 1977-set political thriller takes home Cannes’ big prize, it will give Neon a sixth consecutive Palme d’Or win following last year’s Anora, Justine Triet’s 2023 winner Anatomy of a Fall, 2022’s Triangle of Sadness, 2021’s Titane and 2019’s Parasite. Out of that bunch, Anora and Parasite won Best Picture Oscars.

The Secret Agent premiered in competition at Cannes on Sunday to 100% fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. The pic stars Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leone, Carlos Francisco, Alice Carvalho and Hermila Guedes.

Set in Recife, Brazil in 1977, The Secret Agent follows Marcelo (Moura), a technology expert in his early 40s,...

Neon has acquired the North American rights to Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent.”

The film premiered in competition at Cannes on Sunday. Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leone, Carlos Francisco, Alice Carvalho, and Hermila Guedes star.

Neon plans for a North American theatrical release later this year.

“The Secret Agent” is set in Recife, Brazil, in 1977 and follows Marcelo (Moura), a technology expert in his early 40s, who is on the run. He arrives in Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son but soon realizes that the city is far from being the non-violent refuge he seeks.

Variety chief film critic Peter Debruge said, “Mendonça began his career as a reporter and critic, and that sensibility infuses every frame, striking an enticing balance between originality and homage.”

The film was produced by Emilie Lesclaux. Co-producers include Nathanaël Karmitz, Elisha Karmitz, Fionnuala Jamison, Olivier Barbier,...

Neon has acquired North American rights to Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Cannes Competition title The Secret Agent.

Neon is planning a theatrical release in the territory for later in 2025. mk2 Films handles international sales.

Set in 1977, political thriller The Secret Agent follows a technology agent on the run, who arrives in Recife, Brazil during carnival week. His hoped-for reunion with his son is disrupted by violence in the city.

Wagner Moura leads the cast, alongside Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leon, Carlos Francisco, Alice Carvalho, and Hermila Guedes.

Emilie Lesclaux produced the film for Brazil’s Cinemascopio. Co-producers are Nathanaël Karmitz,...

Private equity fund Muv Capital is allying with Brazilian distribution company Retrato Filmes to co-invest in its distribution slate of projects, including acquisition of buzzy titles made for Brazil and Latin America at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

São Paulo-based, Muv Capital is the entertainment arm of Latin America’s leading alternative asset management company, Hurst Capital.

Muv Capital’s initial investments have been made in the music industry and fine arts. Its alliance with Retrato is its first audiovisual investment in Brazil and first solo project. It comes after Laura Rossi was appointed in November as Muv’s head of investments in audiovisual. A specialist in financing, rights management and positioning projects in the market, Rossi previously served as a former head of international at Gullane, one of Brazil’s biggest independent film-tv production houses.

Previously joining other equity funds to invest in two international titles, “Swimming Home” and “The Summer Book,...

A favorite filmmaker of the festival, and perhaps the best Brazilian filmmaker currently working, Kleber Mendonça Filho has been to Cannes on many occasions. He has been a fiour star tyope of filmmaker for us with Aquarius (read ★★★★ review) and Bacurau (read ★★★★ review). Of course our favorite still remains the Rotterdam selected Neighboring Sounds (read review). Filming on The Secret Agent took place in March of last year — it stars Wagner Moura as Marcelo, a university professor in his 40s who is on the run. He travels from São Paulo to the seaside city of Recife during Carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son.…...

Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho is no stranger to Cannes, having debuted two previous films in Competition beginning with Aquarius in 2016 starring Sonia Braga, so effective as a woman determined not to lose her condo to a demolition, and then grabbing the Jury Prize in 2019 for the surreal western Bacurau (again with Braga), in which a whole village seemingly is disappeared from satellite maps and must fight for its existence. Both of those movies deal thematically with people threatened with losing their way of life, being displaced.

Now his third film in Competition and biggest production yet, The Secret Agent, also might fit into that theme as it centers on a man coming back 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...

The opening credits to director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” set the scene as Brazil, 1977, and then add, “a period of great mischief.” And that might be an appropriate capsule description of the film itself, a mischievous romp that includes secret identities, corrupt cops, intricate schemes, Carnaval frivolity, a severed leg inside a shark’s stomach, some very bloody and brutal action, a deliberately garish ’70s cinema style and a bit of thoughtfulness and emotion spread out over almost two and a half hours.

Does it all hold together? Nope. “The Secret Agent” is all over the place – not literally, since like almost all of Filho’s films, it takes place in the Brazilian city of Recife, his hometown – and cohesiveness or coherence are not high on its list of attributes. But its messiness is part of its charm and part of the point; a film that took...

“The Secret Agent” marks the third time lauded Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho plays in competition at Cannes, following “Aquarius” in 2016 and “Bacurau” in 2019, but it does not make him any less giddy about heading to the Croisette. Speaking with Variety ahead of the festival, Filho says he “can’t and won’t be blasé about it.”

“I am so happy with the film and want the incredible people who worked on it to see it,” he continues, adding that over 60 cast and crew members will make their way to France for the world premiere. “I have a personal history with Cannes, attending as a critic, then seeing my shorts become features, and now I am in competition for the third time, which is incredible.”

Set in 1977 during Brazil’s military dictatorship, political thriller “The Secret Agent” — produced by Emilie Lesclaux and Cinemascópio in co-production by Mk Productions, Lemming, One...

With the 2025 Cannes Film Festival kicking off on Tuesday, one key question is what movies not to miss on the Croisette.

From competition veterans like the Dardenne brothers, Kelly Reichardt and Joachim Trier to newly promoted auteurs like Ari Aster, Oliver Hermanus, Carla Simón and Oliver Laxe, THR’s chief film critic rounds up 10 essential premieres

Die, My Love

Lynne Ramsey first turned heads in Cannes with her stunning 1999 feature debut Ratcatcher, about a 12-year-old boy growing up in poverty in the Glasgow housing projects. The Scottish director returned to the Croisette three years later with Morvern Callar, graduating to the official competition with We Need to Talk About Kevin in 2011 and You Were Never Really Here in 2017. Admirers have had a long wait for Ramsey’s fifth feature, a thriller with a vein of comedy she describes as “dark and fucked-up,” starring Jennifer Lawrence as a new mother walloped by postpartum depression,...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 78th edition (May 13-24).

Scroll down for full line-up

Festival director Thierry Frémaux revealed the Official Selection at a press conference at the Ugc Montparnasse cinema in Paris alongside festival president Iris Knobloch.

A diverse range of features make up the 2025 Competition, mixing veteran auteurs with up-and-coming directors.

Acclaimed directors the Dardenne Brothers, Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and Joachim Trier are among those selected for Cannes Competition 2025.

Newcomers to the Competition include genre specialist Ari Aster, Berlin Golden Bear winner Carla Simon as well as Germany’s Mascha Schilinski.

Six...

Looking for a way to stay dry during the rainy month of April? What better place to cozy up than your local repertory cinema. For those based in New York and Los Angeles, the offerings over the next few weeks are some of the best of the year thus far, with multiple series being held on both coasts that put a light on some of cinema’s unsung heroes. Starting in the east, Film at Lincoln Center will be paying homage to UCLA’s L.A. Rebellion movement of the 1970s and ’80s. Revitalizing Black cinema after the market for Blaxploitation began to dwindle, this collective included filmmakers such as Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Larry Clark, Zeinabu irene Davis, and many more.

On the west coast, not only will the Eagle at Vidiots be celebrating the late Gene Hackman with showings of two of his films, but American Cinematheque will...

With just three weeks until the line-up for the Cannes Film Festival 2025 is announced on April 10,Screentakes a look at the films from around the world looking increasingly likely to debut on the Croisette.

North America

English-language auteurs Wes Anderson, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch and Kelly Reichardt could all unveil their anticipated next films at the Cannes – and if they do, it will drum up the kind of red-carpet glamour Thierry Fremaux loves.

Two years after The French Dispatch played in Competition, Anderson looks a safe bet to return with The Phoenician Scheme, a spy comedy thriller featuring...

Westerns are a movie genre gaining new meaning in the 21st century. By deconstructing old archetypes and redefining the American West, contemporary Westerns welcome a new audience into the transformative power of cinema in historical fiction. The cinematic experience is like nothing else, and there's a reason why movies are able to create a powerful feeling that continually has audiences returning for more. Film industry lovers can indulge in gigantic franchises and more intimate independent features.

A consistent barometer for success is the numbers movies bring in at the box office, but there's still room for plenty of genres that tell different kinds of stories. Westerns have become a bit of a lost art and a type of movie associated with the past, but they're far from dead. Some creative filmmakers know how to get the most out of this classic genre, and there are some incredible modern Westerns for...

Brazil will be the official country of honor at this year’s Marché du Film, the Cannes film market, an acknowledgment of the growing strength of Brazilian cinema internationally.

Brazilian cinema is riding a wave right now, helped by the global success of Walter Salles’ political drama I’m Still Here, which is up for 3 Oscars this weekend: Best International Feature, Best Actress for lead Fernanda Torres, and Best Film.

The Brazilian industry will have a strong presence throughout the Marché, which runs from May 13 to May 21 during the 78th Cannes film festival, with key industry figures featuring in events and panels devoted to strengthening international ties and expanding the global reach of Brazilian storytelling.

In a great piece of news for market attendees, Brazil will also host the Marché’s official opening night party at the Plage des Palmes on May 13.

Brazilian cinema has been a near-constant feature in Cannes over the decades,...

New Bandits, a relatively new TV series for Amazon Prime Video, is the perfect example of a show that fits into a particular genre, this time being the Brazilian Western. The series premiered on August 18, 2023, receiving very positive reviews from both critics and audiences alike, making New Bandits an underrated gem in the Amazon Prime Video TV show catalog. It revolves around a man who attempts to fulfill his father's legacy by becoming the leader of a ruthless pack of bandits.

Once one of the most popular genres in cinematic history, some of Hollywood's most iconic movies are Westerns. Westerns also hasn't been confined to just the United States over the years, as many countries have adopted their own version of the Western, adapting the genre's stylistic embellishes into something that is relevant to their own audiences. One country in particular has thrived on the Western genre throughout its film history; Brazil.

At The Streamable, we love watching movies and TV for free, especially if we don’t have to sit through ads. Tubi is great, but seeing an ad for car insurance in the middle of your movie tends to kill the vibe. As we race to Halloween, we looked up all the best scary movies and found that a huge number were streaming ad-free on Kanopy, which is free if your library participates. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Hoopla is another free streamer that just added a major horror partner.

Your library probably partners with either Kanopy or Hoopla (or both!), giving you an unexpectedly great package of ad-free entertainment.

Use Kanopy for the Best Horror Selection

My jaw dropped when I saw how many A+ horror movies were available ad-free on Kanopy. You can see 48(!) of Metacritic’s best-reviewed horror films.

Kanopy gives you recent horror masterpieces like “Hereditary,...

Filmmakers James Gray, Andrew Haigh and Agnieszka Holland have joined the main competition jury of the 81st Venice Film Festival (August 28-September 7).

They are joined by Brazilian director and screenwriter Kleber Mendonça Filho; Mauritanian director, screenwriter and producer Abderrahmane Sissako; Italian director and screenwriter Giuseppe Tornatore; German director and screenwriter Julia von Heinz; and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.

As previously announced, the jury will be chaired by Isabelle Huppert, and award the Golden Lion for best film and the other official awards.

Gray’s Ad Astra screened in competition at Venice in 2019, and his directorial debut Little Odessa received the...

“Baby,” which premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week where it won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for joint acting lead Ricardo Teodoro, has closed further sales.

Berlin-based sales agency M-Appeal have sold the distribution rights to Ama Films for Greece, Mezipatra z.s for Czech Republic and Slovakia, and Falcon for Indonesia.

“Baby,” directed by Brazilian Marcelo Caetano and based on a screenplay by Caetano and Gabriel Domingues, follows 18-year-old Wellington, who finds himself alone and adrift on the streets of São Paulo, without any contact from his parents and lacking the resources to rebuild his life. He encounters Ronaldo, a mature man, who teaches him new ways of surviving. Gradually, their relationship turns into a conflicting passion.

Ama Films, whose recent releases include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist” (also handled by M-Appeal) and Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero,” plans to release “Baby” in cinemas at the end of the year.

As Baby opens, the title character, whose given name is Wellington, has a taste of freedom for the first time in nearly two years. He’s ending his stint in a youth detention center, a place with the grim industrial aura of a high-security prison — but also one where there are occasional breaks for drum-and-brass musical performances. Freedom presents particular challenges for Wellington, who discovers upon return to his working-class São Paulo neighborhood that his parents have left the city. There’s no forwarding address. Stepping into the void is a man more than twice his age, offering a confusing tangle of care and possessiveness as lover, mentor, business partner and paternal protector.

Exploring the twisty, aching complexities of the men’s relationship and the demimonde they inhabit, writer-director Marcelo Caetano (Body Electric), who served as casting director on Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Bacurau and Aquarius, has drawn compelling performances from his two leads.

Berlin-based sales agency M-Appeal has sold the distribution rights for Marcelo Caetano‘s “Baby,” which world premiered May 21 in Cannes Critics’ Week, to several territories.

The buyers are Palace Films for Australia and New Zealand, Swallow Wings Films for Taiwan, and Salzgeber for Germany and Austria.

The Brazilian film, based on a screenplay by Caetano and Gabriel Domingues, centers on 18-year-old Wellington, who has been released from a juvenile detention center. He finds himself alone and adrift on the streets of São Paulo, without any contact from his parents and lacking the resources to rebuild his life. He encounters Ronaldo, a mature man, who teaches him new ways of surviving. Gradually, their relationship turns into a conflicting passion.

The cast includes João Pedro Mariano, Ricardo Teodoro, Ana Flavia Cavalcanti, Bruna Linzmeyer and Luiz Bertazzo.

The production companies are Cup Filmes, Desbun Filmes and Plateau Produções in Brazil, Still Moving in France,...

Kino Lorber is expanding its streaming footprint. The boutique art-house distributor just launched its own SVOD platform, the Kino Film Collection.

The new app is available now as a standalone service on Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, and Roku, and it will feature hundreds of movies from Kino Lorber’s film library of more than 4,000 titles. Subscriptions will begin at $5.99 per month.

In November 2023, Kino Lorber launched an Amazon Prime Video channel; you can still access its titles there. But having its own service puts the company in the race alongside other niche streaming options in the space, like the Criterion Channel ($10.99/month) or Mubi ($14.99/month).

As part of the launch, Kino Film Collection curated a selection of titles that showcase auteurs who have played at Cannes; the 2024 film festival is currently ongoing. The collection includes early movies from Yorgos Lanthimos, Jia Zhangke, and Ken Loach, as well as...

Few companies in the world have had such as impact on their local film industry than Globo Filmes, the feature co-production arm of Brazilian giant Globo, which is Latin America’s biggest communications conglomerate. Over the last 25 years, Globo Filmes has backed more than 500 movies, almost all through co-production.

Those films have collectively sold 260 million cinema theater admissions, an average of over 10 million admissions a year, accounting for more than 70% of Brazilian market share from 1998-2024.

Globo Filmes greenlights more than 20 movies a year, powering up by far the biggest production slate of any company in Brazil, thanks to article 3A of the country’s audiovisual law, which allows it to tap tax incentives for investing in feature films.

Launching in 1998, Globo Filmes helped accelerate the Brazilian film industry’s recovery after President Fernando Collor de Mello shuttered state film agency Embrafilme in 1990, paralyzing production. Twenty-five years later, after a...

A key driver in Brazil’s late 1990s cinema resurgence, Globo Filmes has co-produced iconic box office blockbusters, Oscar and “A” Fest plays, arthouse breakouts. movies sparking big TV spin-offs. A brief selection of milestones in its storied history:

1990

President Fernando Collar’s government closes state owned film company Embrafilme, decimating Brazilian film production.

1993

A new Audiovisual Law offers companies income tax deductions for investment in Brazilian movies as Brazil’s Resurgence – economic and cultural recovery – lifts off.

1997

Globo Filmes is founded. Recalls Daniel Filho, its guiding spirit, in early years: “I started working in Globo TV but I always said: “I want to make cinema.’ I was on my way to close a deal with exhibitor Luis Severiano Ribeiro to launch a film production house when I got a call from Globo to launch Globo Filmes. I agreed: Globo had to do what French and British channels were doing: Participate in films.

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “Rivers of Dust,” Anna Muyleart’s “Geni and the Zeppelin” and “Pearl Motel,” fromJorge Furtado, feature among potential nine brand new projects announced at the Cannes Festival by Globo Filmes, the theatrical film co-production arm of Brazilian TV giant Globo.

With Mendonça Filho deep in pre-production on political thriller “The Secret Agent,” co-produced by France’s Mk Productions, details on “Rivers of Dust,” save that he will re-team on it with Juliano Dornelles after their 2019 Cannes Jury Prize winner “Bacurau.”

Elsewhere, the new projects speak volumes of Globo Filmes’ current content focus. There’s the broad spectrum. . Titles straddle commercial plays – gay espionage operatives comedy “Special Agents” from Pedro Antônio – “A” list festival plays such as “Rivers” and Geni” and cross-over titles such as sex-laced situation comedy “Pearl Motel.”

Above all, additions to Globo Filmes’ development slate underscore two of its biggest investment priorities.

One is diversity.

The trailer (below) has debuted for Marcelo Caetano’s “Baby,” which has its world premiere in Cannes Critics’ Week. Berlin-based sales agency M-Appeal has acquired world sales rights.

The Brazilian film, based on a screenplay by Caetano and Gabriel Domingues, centers on 18-year-old Wellington, who has been released from a juvenile detention center. He finds himself alone and adrift on the streets of São Paulo, without any contact from his parents and lacking the resources to rebuild his life. He encounters Ronaldo, a mature man, who teaches him new ways of surviving. Gradually, their relationship turns into a conflicting passion.

The cast includes João Pedro Mariano, Ricardo Teodoro, Ana Flavia Cavalcanti, Bruna Linzmeyer and Luiz Bertazzo.

The production companies are Cup Filmes, Desbun Filmes and Plateau Produções in Brazil, Still Moving in France, and Circe Films and Kaap Holland in the Netherlands.

The producers are Beto Tibiriçá, Ivan Melo and Caetano.

Following up his documentary Pictures of Ghosts, Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho has unveiled his first narrative feature since 2019’s Bacurau. He’ll next direct the political thriller The Secret Agent, set to star Brazilian icon Wagner Moura.

Variety reports the late 1970s-set film will follow Moura as Marcelo, “a university professor in his 40s who is on the run. He travels from São Paulo to the seaside city of Recife during Carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son. But he soon finds out he has been tailed and spied on by neighbors in his new refuge, leaving him no possible escape from the tentacles of corruption.” Maria Fernanda Candido (The Traitor) is also among the ensemble of the film, which is aiming for a 2025 premiere and will mark the director’s most ambitious work yet.

The director actually revealed the project last year, saying, “The plot takes place...

Brazilian auteur Kleber Mendonça Filho (“Bacurau”) is set to direct “The Secret Agent,” a gripping political thriller headlined by “Civil War” star Wagner Moura. The film is set in the late 1970s during the final years of Brazil’s military dictatorship.

MK2 Films, the sales banner behind the Oscar-winning “Anatomy of a Fall,” will introduce the project to buyers at the Cannes Film Market. Now in pre-production, “The Secret Agent” is being produced by Brazil’s Cinemascopio and Mk Productions, whose credits include Oscar-nominated films such as Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World” and Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War.”

Moura, who broke through internationally with his Golden Globe-nominated performance as Pablo Escobar in the Netflix series “Narcos,” will star as Marcelo, a university professor in his 40s who is on the run. He travels from São Paulo to the seaside city of Recife during Carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son.

Berlin-based M-Appeal has taken on world sales rights to Brazilian director Marcelo Caetano’s Cannes Critics’ Week title Baby.

The film, scripted by Caetano and Gabriel Domingues, follows an 18-year-old boy who is released from a juvenile detention centre and finds himself adrift on the streets of São Paulo.

The Brazil-France-Netherlands co-production is made through Cup Filmes, Caetano’s Desbun Filmes, Plateau Produções, Still Moving, Circe Films and Kaap Holland Film. The cast is led by João Pedro Mariano, Ricardo Teodoro and Ana Flavia Cavalcanti.

M-Appeal also handled the director’s 2017 debut feature Body Electric. Vitrine Filmes will distribute Caetano’s second film in Brazil.

Hailing from the country that gave us such grim social critics as Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl, Vantablack Austrian satire “Veni Vidi Vici” opens with a senseless homicide. It’s a startling scene, no less upsetting than the Scorpio killing that kick-starts “Dirty Harry” — except that in this case, the incident is calibrated as the darkest sort of comedy. Rather than picking off an unsuspecting rooftop swimmer, the serial killer does his hunting out in the open, without shame or any pretense of covering his tracks.

The movie makes no mystery of the sniper’s identity, revealing it right from the jump, the way a “Columbo” episode might. And yet the authorities show zero interest in arresting the guilty party, even going so far as to toss an eyewitness out of the police station (that man winds up offing himself in exasperation). That’s because the person responsible, Amon Maynard (Laurence Rupp), is a millionaire,...

Kleber Mendonça Filho followed his epic Bacurau with a lower-key reflection on his personal cinematic life. A hit at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Pictures of Ghosts distills a lifetime of the Brazilian’s cinephilia through archival documentary, mystery, film clips, and personal memories to bring back to life downtown Recife’s classic movie palaces from the 20th century, many of which are mostly gone. Ahead of Grasshopper Film’s January 26 release, there’s a new trailer.

As David Katz said in his review, “If the death of cinema is imminent, at least Kleber Mendonça Filho can play it out with some vintage Tropicália. It’s becoming a nice leitmotif of the Brazilian director’s career, whose ultraviolent Bacurau curtain-raised with Gal Costa’s ‘Não Identificado,’ and latest effort Pictures of Ghosts, which premiered as a Special Screening at Cannes, eases in with Tom Zé’s deceptively jaunty ‘Happy End.

Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho is best known for ambitious narrative swings like Palme d’Or contenders “Bacurau” and “Aquarius.” But with his latest film, which exuberantly melds documentary and narrative filmmaking techniques, Mendonça Filho turns the camera back on his native country and toward his medium. “Pictures of Ghosts,” which represented Brazil in the race for the 2024 Best International Feature Film Academy Award, immortalizes the lost movie houses of Brazil, specifically in Recife (the capital of Brazil’s state of Pernambuco). Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “Pictures of Ghosts” “is a multidimensional journey through time, sound, architecture and filmmaking, set in the urban landscape of Recife, Brazilian coastal capital of Pernambuco: a historical and human territory, examined through the great movie theatres that served as spaces of conviviality during the 20th century. Having hosted dreams and progress, these places have also embodied...

Kino Lorber has launched a new subscription streaming outlet, Kino Film Collection.

The $6-a-month destination for recent theatrical releases and hundreds of other films drawn from the company’s vast library will be available in the U.S. on Prime Video Channels.

Kino Lorber also operates Kino Now, a platform for rentals and purchases of arthouse and specialty films. The company has made several streaming moves of late. In 2022, it acquired MHz Choice and installed AMC Networks veteran Ed Carroll and former IFC Films head Lisa Schwartz in key management roles. Schwartz, Kino Lorber’s Chief Revenue Officer, will oversee Kino Film Collection. Last spring, Kino Lorber also formed a joint venture with First Look Media to operate both MHz Choice and First Look’s streaming service Topic.

Films available on Kino Film Collection at launch include new 4K restorations of The Conformist as well as key works by contemporary...

Independent film distributor Kino Lorber has officially unveiled streaming service Kino Film Collection, available via Prime Video here.

The Kino Film Collection will be launched in the U.S. on the Amazon Service via Prime Video Channels for $5.99 per month. The Collection will feature new Kino releases fresh from theaters, along with hundreds of films from its expansive library of more than 4,000 titles, with many now streaming for the first time.

New 4K restorations of films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Conformist,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth,” Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi,” Todd Haynes’ “Poison,” Tran Anh Hung’s “The Scent of Green Papaya,” Ana Lily Amirpour’s “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,” and Jia Zhangke’s “A Touch of Sin” are among highlights of the first offerings from Kino Film Collection.

Kino canon films like Fritz Lang’s historic “Metropolis,” F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,...

Sônia Braga to be honored during opening ceremony

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Pictures Of Ghosts will open the 15th Hollywood Brazilian Film Festival running November 6 to 11.

The documentary, this year’s Brazilian submission for the Oscars, explores the picture palaces of Filho’s hometown of Recife. It will screen at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and premiered in Cannes Special Screenings. US distributors are Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films.

Sônia Braga, star of Kiss Of The Spider Woman and Filho’s Aquarius and Bacurau, will be honoured during the opening ceremony

The year’s line-up was curated by Thiago Macêdo Correia,...

Following his epic Bacurau, Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho returned to Cannes Film Festival this year with Pictures of Ghosts, a bittersweet, fascinating look at his personal cinematic life. Utilizing archive documentary, mystery, film clips, and personal memories to bring back to life downtown Recife’s classic movie palaces from the 20th century, many of which are mostly gone, the film will stop by TIFF and NYFF followed by a release from Grasshopper Film and now the first trailer has arrived.

David Katz said in his review, “If the death of cinema is imminent, at least Kleber Mendonça Filho can play it out with some vintage Tropicália. It’s becoming a nice leitmotif of the Brazilian director’s career, whose ultraviolent Bacurau curtain-raised with Gal Costa’s “Não Identificado,” and latest effort Pictures of Ghosts, which premiered as a Special Screening at Cannes, eases in with Tom Zé’s deceptively jaunty “Happy End.

Paris-based outfit Urban Sales has locked several deals on “Pictures of Ghosts,” the latest film by celebrated Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho ahead of its North American premieres at Toronto and New York film festivals. The movie world premiered at Cannes in the Special Screenings section.

Weaving archive documentary, mystery, film clips and personal memories, the film has sold to the U.S. (Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes) and France (Urban Distribution and Dean Media). “Pictures of Ghosts” will be released simultaneously in Portugal and Brazil on Aug. 24.

Described as a multidimensional journey through time, sound, architecture and filmmaking, “Pictures of Ghosts” is set in the urban landscape of Recife, located in the Brazilian coastal capital of Pernambuco. Having hosted dreams and progress, these places have also embodied a major transformation on social practices.

The film was produced by Emilie Lesclaux at CinemaScópio Produções and co-produced by...

Michel Merkt, the Monaco-based producer and consultant who’s played a key behind-the-scene role in bolstering Cannes’s profile post-pandemic, has been named honorary citizen of the city of Cannes

Merkt, an AMPAS voter who has produced over 50 films, was awarded the diploma prize by Cannes Mayor David Lisnard during an intimate ceremony on May 23. Lisnard paid tribute to the Swiss-born consultant and benefactor’s crucial backing for the city’s cultural and social initiatives.

In the last few years, Merkt has helped reinvigorate Critics Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar dedicated to first and second films, by financing the renovation of its venue, the Miramar theater. He also lent a precious financing hand to the Cannes Film Festival, Directors Fortnight, as well as Canneseries and helped enlist top-level executives for its industry program, on top of being involved in the city’s plans to build a college campus.

One of the great Brazilian directors working today, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s recent epic Bacurau was unfortunately thwarted in its U.S. release, coming out as the pandemic arrived. Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to catch up with the Carpenter-inspired western, and now he’s set to premiere his new film at the Cannes Film Festival.

Utilizing archive documentary, mystery, film clips, and personal memories, Pictures of Ghosts has been described as “a multidimensional journey through time, sound, architecture, and filmmaking.” Here’s the official Cannes synopsis: “Downtown Recife’s classic movie palaces from the 20th century are mostly gone. That city area is now an archaeological site of sorts that reveals aspects of life in society which have been lost. And that’s just part of the story.”

“Cinemas in city centers are common to many other places in the world, but it so happens that I am from Pernambuco,...

Sometimes, genres are a good thing. When it’s Saturday night, and we’re not sure what movie to watch with our friends, it helps to determine whether we’re in the mood for a horror flick or a rom-com. When there’s something like a Barbie movie on the way, viewers want to know if they should expect an absurdist comedy for grown-ups or a light drama for children. Indeed, movie genres exist for a reason. However, every now and then, they can stifle our cinematic experience, keeping us trapped inside the confines of what we already know. When we find ourselves in this position, the best thing to do is to go looking for something that defies our preconceptions of genre as a whole. Every now and then, we need something like Bacurau.

Frédéric Corvez’s Paris-based Urban Sales has boarded “Pictures of Ghosts”, the latest film of renowned Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho.

The movie, which marks Mendonça Filho’s fifth feature film, will world premiere at Cannes in the Special Screenings section.

“Pictures of Ghosts” will mark the director’s third film to bow at Cannes, following two competition entries, “Bacurau” (co-directed by Juliano Dornelles) which won the Jury Prize n 2019, and “Aquarius” in 2016.

“Pictures of Ghosts” combines archive documentary, mystery, film clips and personal memories. The film is produced by Emilie Lesclaux at CinemaScópio Produções and co-produced by Silvia Cruz and Felipe Lopes’ Vitrine Filmes.

Described as a multidimensional journey through time, sound, architecture and filmmaking, “Pictures of Ghosts” is set in the urban landscape of Recife, located in the Brazilian coastal capital of Pernambuco. Having hosted dreams and progress, these places have also embodied a major transformation on social practices.

Paris-based Loco Films has released the tense, terrifying trailer for “Property,” Brazilian director Daniel Bandeira’s survival thriller that’s set to have its world premiere Feb. 23 in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival.

Lensed by veteran cinematographer Pedro Sotero, the Dp behind Kleber Mendonça Filho’s 2019 Berlinale player “Bacurau,” “Property” follows a woman who flees her family estate in an armored car after local workers rise up to occupy it. Trapped inside the vehicle, she refuses to negotiate, prompting a collision between the competing worlds of haves and have-nots that speaks to a growing schism taking shape in societies across the globe.

Bandeira’s sophomore effort is a timely and explosive portrait of a society on the brink. “Brazil is a time bomb,” the director told Variety. “We’re running toward a point where this bomb will eventually blow up.” He added: “A reckoning is on the way.

Paris-based banner Loco Films will be hitting the European Film Market with mix of French and international movies, including the Berlinale Panorama title “Property,” as well as “Grand Expectations” and “Like An Actress.”

“Property,” which marks the sophomore outing of Brazilian helmer Daniel Bandeira, is a survival thriller lensed Pedro Sotero, the cinematographer of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “Bacurau” and “Aquarius.” The sole Brazilian movie competing at the Berlin Film Festival, “Territory” follows Teresa, who flees her family estate in an armored car after rebelling workers start occupying it. She’s trapped, but refuses to negotiate, prompting a collision between two universes.

Laurent Danielou at Loco Films pointed Bandeira was part of the collective Recife alongside Mendonça Filho with whom he teamed on his first short film “Little Cotton Girl.” “Property” is produced by Simio Filmes and Vilarejo Filmes whose credits include other politically minded films such as “Aquarius.”

“‘Property...

In 2017, when the Cannes Film Festival celebrated its 70th anniversary, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” was a box-office smash, “Moonlight” won Best Picture, and Will Smith was a giddy member of the festival jury, watching everything from “Good Time” to “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.” Salma Hayek, host of the dinner party for that evening, hired a surprise mariachi band to storm the event as the Three Amigos goaded the room into one boisterous song after another.

Those were more innocent times. The festival’s 75th-anniversary ceremony and subsequent dinner took place two years after the festival’s Covid-era cancellation and the obliteration of theaters around the world. Hopes remain that “Top Gun: Maverick” can reignite moviegoing enthusiasm a week after its boisterous Cannes premiere, but within the celebratory atmosphere many actors and filmmakers expressed uncertainty about how much stability remained for their work.

This time, there were no mariachi bands.