Kleber Mendonça Filho

Kleber Mendonça Filho (; born 22 November 1968) is a Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer, and critic.

Early life

With a degree in journalism from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Kleber Mendonça Filho began his career as a film critic and journalist. He wrote for newspapers such as Jornal do Commercio and Folha de S. Paulo, for magazines such as Continente and Cinética, and for his own site, CinemaScópio.

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.

Career

As a director, he experimented with fiction, documentary, and video clips in the 1990s. He migrated from video to digital and 35mm film in the 2000s. Over the course of that decade, he made several short films, including ''A Menina do Algodão'' (co-directed by Daniel Bandeira, 2002), ''Vinil Verde'' (2004), ''Eletrodoméstica'' (2005), ''Noite de Sexta Manhã de Sábado'' (2006), and ''Recife Frio'' (Cold Tropics, 2009), as well as a feature-length documentary, ''Crítico'' (2008).

'' Neighbouring Sounds'' (''O Som ao Redor,'' 2013) was Mendonça's first feature-length drama, winning numerous awards. Film critic AO Scott of ''The New York Times'' included it in his list of the 10 best films of 2012. Caetano Veloso, in his column in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, classified it as "one of the best movies made recently in the world ". The film was selected as the Brazilian submission for the 86th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not nominated.

In 2016, his second feature film, '' Aquarius'' premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and was later nominated for Best International Film at the 32nd Independent Spirit Awards and for the César Award for Best Foreign Film, but lost to Maren Ade's '' Toni Erdmann'' and to Ken Loach's '' I, Daniel Blake'', respectively. In 2017, he was the jury president of the Critics' Week section of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

His third film, '' Bacurau'', co-written and co-directed with Juliano Dornelles, won the Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, shared with Ladj Ly's ''Les Misérables''. In 2020, he was a member of the main competition jury of the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. The following year, he was a member of the main competition jury of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

His second documentary feature, ''Retratos Fantasmas'' ('' Pictures of Ghosts'') premiered in the Special Screenings section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The film was selected as the Brazilian submission for the 96th Academy Awards, but was not nominated. In 2024, he was a member of the main competition jury of the 81st Venice International Film Festival.

''The Secret Agent'' (''O Agente Secreto''), his fourth film, had its world premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where Mendonça was awarded the Best Director prize, while Wagner Moura was awarded Best Actor prize.

Filmography

Feature films

Documentaries

Short films

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mendonca Filho, Kleber
1968 births
Living people
Brazilian film directors
People from Recife
Federal University of Pernambuco alumni
Brazilian screenwriters
Brazilian film producers
Silver Condor Award for Best Ibero-American Film winners
Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director winners