Kleber Mendonça Filho on Brazil’s cool factor

Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho can’t quite pinpoint what turned his fourth feature film, “The Secret Agent,” into a global hit — but he suspects it has something to do with Brazil’s growing cool factor.

The film, a Portuguese-language political thriller about an academic on the run in the seaside city of Recife during Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1970s, has already picked up awards at the Golden Globes and Cannes and is now up for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Its success comes on the heels of “I’m Still Here,” which last year became Brazil’s first film to win an Academy Award.

Speaking to Reuters via Zoom from Paris during awards season, Mendonça Filho discusses the film’s global reception, the evolution of Brazil’s audiovisual industry, and why his next challenge may include directing a film abroad.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How do you explain the global appeal the film has had?

I think it comes from the foundation laid by my earlier films; there’s a progression. This trajectory allowed me to make my biggest film so far — a thriller offering a wide human and historical panorama of Brazil.

Brazil’s political developments have drawn attention. This helps explain the film’s reception — and on top of that, last year we had “I’m Still Here,” which charmed and moved audiences. “The Secret Agent” features an international star, Wagner Moura, who comes from Brazil, a country that I think is now highly regarded internationally.

Beyond thriller, there is also a dystopian or fantastical component in your narratives, such as the scene of an animated severed leg attacking people in “The Secret Agent.” Is it connected to the styles of other Latin American writers such as García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges or Julio Cortázar?

I personally have a fascination with the natural world, but I am also very interested in fantasy; in what comes with cinema and literature. I never thought of García Márquez, although I greatly admire him. And I think anyone who has read “One Hundred Years of Solitude” can never unread it. Maybe some of that is inside me, but honestly, no. It is very rare to open a newspaper and find a story as fantastic as a hairy leg scaring people in the park. These texts were published openly to mock censorship. The hairy leg symbolized the police forces beating people. That combination of the normal with the fantastic, of realism with something extreme, is what interests me.

Your film seems to crown a very productive moment for Brazilian cinema. Since you began making films, how have you watched this path take shape?

Public policy played a role. During [President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] Lula’s second term, there was an effort to spread public resources to support productions that did not necessarily come from Rio or São Paulo. If it had not been for that public call, I would not have made “Neighboring Sounds,” (a 2012 drama also based in Recife). Today my name is well established, but people forget that I started with a film that came from an affirmative (action) funding program.

It is important for these new filmmakers to be there, showing their work, because we are building a vision of Brazil through Brazilian audiovisual production, and that is strategically important for the country. It creates jobs and it creates identity as well.

The growth of Brazil’s audiovisual industry is often compared to South Korea, which has a very strong audiovisual sector. Could Brazil develop something similar?

Brazil’s Constitution supports artistic expression and its dissemination, so it is very smart to support artistic expression — whether in literature, theater, music, cinema or audiovisual production.

South Korea has invested heavily in projecting an idea of the country through K-pop, through the films of Bong Joon Ho, of Park Chan-wook.

I think the emergence of Brazilian cinema that represents the country is something remarkable. The film, together with “I’m Still Here” last year, opened a portal in people’s minds about Brazil, so all of this is very gratifying to me.

How was the co-producing process with Netflix? And what role do you see streaming platforms playing in promoting Brazilian cinema?

Brazil needs to follow other countries and tax streaming companies, which have immense popularity and profit from the local industry, so the money contributes to national audiovisual production.

We sold the Brazilian streaming premiere of the film to Netflix, which means after its theatrical run, it will debut on streaming. For me, as a filmmaker who strongly defends movie theaters, it is very important that this only happens in the fourth, fifth or even sixth month of theatrical exhibition.

Netflix has been a good partner, (and) our differences were resolved in this agreement. The priority is cinema first, cinema second, and I will be very happy when it arrives on Netflix, at the right time. I also like the idea that millions of Brazilians who unfortunately do not have access to a movie theater will finally be able to see the film.

What’s next for you? Do you have any other exciting projects in the works?

This next project will once again be a film that comes from me — something I will have to sit down, research and write. But I have also been telling people that I am keeping myself very open to finding something in the United States, in England, in France — something I could fall in love with.

So would you tell a non-Brazilian story?

Yes, because when I tell the stories I tell, there is an interesting Brazilian element, but I don’t think that is the primary concern.

Each film is a challenge. “The Secret Agent” was a challenge I wanted to take on. It was a major challenge to work with Wagner, to set the story in the 1970s, to revisit the country’s and Recife’s history, to avoid using the word “dictatorship” — all of that was a very interesting challenge for me.

Making a film abroad is another challenge that interests me. I am only speculating here. The idea has to appear; it needs to click.

With the Oscars coming up, what does this moment mean to the Brazilian film industry? And to you?

This is a great moment for Brazilian audiences and the Brazilian film industry because the successes of Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” and now with “The Secret Agent” are really about seeing yourself on the screen and also realizing the images coming from Brazil are getting a lot of exposure and prestige abroad. All of that is kind of magical because I think Brazilians are very much aware of how cool Brazil is.

We have over 60 characters in “The Secret Agent” and we got this very special nomination for Best Casting — such great work done by Gabriel Domingues in the film, and the other three nominations.

So I think there is a lot of that electricity in Brazil in terms of thinking about this film, about what it means, thinking about the past of Brazil, and the dictatorship and the violence. And above all, the love and the affection that are part of the story and I believe are very much part of who we are as a people. We’re incredibly affectionate people — even if we have to deal with a country that is both beautiful and ugly, that is loving and also violent. And I think the film goes there in terms of expressing these ideas.