
Kleber Mendonça Filho
Directing
Biography
Kleber Mendonça Filho (born November 22, 1968) is a Brazilian film director, screenwriter and producer. With a degree in Journalism from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Kleber Mendonça Filho began his career as a film critic and journalist. As a director, he experimented with fiction, documentary, and video clips in the 1990s. He migrated from video to digital and 35 mm film in the 2000s. Over the course of that decade, he made several short films. "O Som ao Redor" (Neighbouring Sounds, 2013) was Mendonça's first feature-length drama, winning numerous awards. Mendonça's films have received more than 120 awards in Brazil and abroad, with selections in festivals such as New York, Copenhagen and Cannes (Quinzaine des réalisateurs). Film festivals in Rotterdam, Toulouse, and Santa Maria da Feira have presented retrospectives of his films. He has served as programmer of cinema for the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation.
Known For

An annual awards ceremony recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign, bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Golden Globe Awards

An annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is better known by its nickname Oscar.
The Oscars

Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. Hoping to reunite with his son, he travels to Recife during Carnival but soon realizes that the city is not the safe haven he was expecting.
The Secret Agent

Bacurau, a small town in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from most maps.
Bacurau

Clara, a vibrant former music critic and widow with flowing tresses is the only remaining apartment owner in a beautiful older building targeted for demolition by ruthless luxury high-rise developers. Clara proves to be a force to be reckoned with as she thwarts the builders plans to kick her out of the apartment.
Aquarius

Seventy critics and filmmakers discuss cinema around the conflict between the artist and the observer, the creator and the critic. Between 1998 and 2007, Kléber Mendonça Filho recorded testimonies about this relationship in Brazil, the United States and Europe, based on his experience as a critic.
Critic

In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”
Room 999

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.
Pictures of Ghosts

A coastal city in Brazil. Kai arrives from Taiwan for holidays with a broken heart. A broken air conditioner sends her into Fu Ang’s umbrella store. He could become a friend, but the rainy season doesn't arrive and his shop disappears. While looking for Fu Ang, Kai discovers the story of Xiaoxin and a group of Chinese workers in a posh skyscraper. Kai finds herself strangely mirrored in Xiaoxin’s tale.
Sleep with Your Eyes Open

An independent private security firm arrives at a middle-class neighborhood in Recife, Brazil.
Neighboring Sounds

Recife, undergoing so many changes, was the scene of a party of joy and tension, sports and politics. A happy experience, but full of the contradictions that make Brazil be Brazil and here wins the face and the space of Recife.
The World Cup in Recife

In tropical Recife, in northeastern Brazil, temperatures drop to impossible lows and the inhabitants have to adapt. This 'mockumentary' gradually turns critical, looking at the climate, urban development and social interaction from every angle. Does a ray of sun pierce the clouds, after all?
Cold Tropics

Passages showcases Brazilian films in which the utilisation of artforms and media such as literature, painting, theatre, music, photography, radio and television, functions as a 'passage' to political and social reality.
Passages: Travelling In and Out of Film Through Brazilian Geography

Summer 1996, north-east coast of Brazil. Tamara is enjoying her last weeks at the fishing village she lives in before departing to Brasilia for her studies. One day, she hears about a teenager nicknamed Heartless after a scar she has on her chest. Over the course of the summer, Tamara feels a growing attraction for this mysterious girl.
Heartless

Behind the scenes of Bacurau (2019)'s shooting and pre-production. With exclusive images, directors Kléber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles show how they made the film an audience and critical success.
Bacurau no Mapa

Flavio Danillo is a personal trainer whose students attend him at the gym. At home, Flavio works his body into a state of decay. Suddenly, his body no longer responds his mind taking over control.
Mens Sana in Corpore Sano

A middle-class family living in a house filled with superfluous electronic appliances see the arrival of a new item, a 29" TV-set.
Eletrodoméstica

Filmed over six years in four countries: Portugal, Brazil, Colombia and United States, this romantic drama tells the story of Luzia, a Brazilian screenwriter, and Adrian, a Colombian actor, that fall in love during a film festival in 2009 and will live a fragmented love story while competing in different film festivals around the world.
Love Film Festival

A small-scale romantic love story, shot with a digital camera in black & white and in a documentary style. We follow the conversation between two lovers, each on a different side of the world; he is in Recife, she is in Kyiv. On one side is dark, on the other light, but both experience the same emotions and hence feel nearness and contact.
Friday Night, Saturday Morning

Middle class man surrounded by fear and paranoia become prisoner of his own world.