In Conversation With Kleber Mendonça Filho

As part of the Focus Brazil: films and oppositions, we are offering you a masterclass with Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, co-director of the feature film Bacurau which was broadcasted on the same channel just before. From Recife to Paris, we offer you an open discussion about the situation of the arts and cinema in Brazil, and a panorama of the new wave of engaged filmmakers emerging on the international scene.

This conversation is hosted by Laurence Reymond, programming collaborator at the Quebec City Film Festival.

Laurence Reymond

Laurence has always loved going to the cinema. In Lyon (city of the Lumière brothers), where she studied Cinema and English, she worked in a small independent cinema, and gradually tested every job: welcoming the public, selling tickets, programming films. The virus being tenacious, Laurence continued her studies in Paris, where she joined the beautiful walls of the Cinémathèque Française then the Centre Pompidou. After programming the short films at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs for several years, she is now head of programming of the Champs-Elysées Film Festival.

Kleber Mendonça Filho

In the 1990s, while still working full-time as a programmer, film critic and journalist for various media, Kleber Mendonça Filho began making his own short films. For Crítico, his documentary debut feature, the Recife-born Brazilian filmmaker gave 70 directors and critics a chance to speak their minds. O Som ao Redor (Neighbouring Sounds), Mendonça’s first fiction feature film, had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2012 and Brazil selected it as its entry for an Oscar. The film has been shown at over 100 festivals and “The New York Times” listed it as one of the ten best films of the year. Four years later, Aquarius, starring Sonia Braga, was invited to participate in the competition in Cannes. The film sold to more than 100 countries and was nominated for a César and an Independent Spirit Award. In 2019, Bacurau, Mendonça’s most recent work, co-directed and co-written with Juliano Dornelles, screened in the competition in Cannes and won the Jury Prize. Kleber is also artistic director of Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife.