The film starring Wagner Moura was nominated for an Oscar this week in 4 categories; ceremony is scheduled for March 15th, in the USA
Nominated for , the Brazilian film “The Secret Agent” resonates around the world for its universal story “about the use of power to crush people”, said director Kleber Mendonça Filho, in an interview with AFP.
After “I’m Still Here” won last year, a new work about the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985) attracts the attention of Hollywood and will compete for the golden statuette in four categories, after winning two Golden Globes, among other awards.
Kleber Mendonça Filho (“Aquarius”, “Bacurau”) relates the good moment of the Brazilian film industry to Lula’s return to power in 2023, “after four years in which culture, in practical terms, was extinguished in the country”, he declared.
The filmmaker spoke by phone with AFP from Recife, the city where he was born in 1968, and where he received the news of the Oscar nominations last Thursday (22).
A key setting for his films, it was in the capital of Pernambuco that Wagner Moura played a university professor recently arrived from São Paulo who did not know he was wanted by gunmen linked to the military regime.
QUESTION: What explains this positive moment for Brazilian cinema?
RESPONSE: “National cinema was reconnected with the election of Lula in 2022, after four years in which culture, in practical terms, was extinguished in Brazil. The Ministry of Culture was abolished. All promotion mechanisms were disabled.
We also had something that I think was great chemistry that happened. We have two films that were very well accepted in Brazil and on the international scene.”
P: Both films address the Brazilian military dictatorship. Why do these stories resonate so much abroad?
R: “I think any story about using power to crush people is always going to be universal.
Today’s world continues to be the same world of wars, invasions, land thefts, use of military and personal power, aggressions, battles… It’s not as if everything we’re seeing now is new. What is shocking is that the world continues to make the same mistakes it always has.
When I wrote The Secret Agent, I initially thought I would be isolated there in 1977, but I started to realize that the film actually talked a lot about the logic of Brazil in 2019, 2020, 2021 [sob a presidência de Jair Bolsonaro]. Which is exactly a logic brought from the past. In the midst of 21st century democracy, a group of politicians decided to reissue the iconography, words, manner, logic and lack of ethics of a military regime.”
P: How was the film received in the United States, where President Donald Trump is criticized for attacks on freedoms and his policy against immigrants?
R: “The reaction to the film is very strong. It has the ability to make many people in contemporary America identify with its story.
I think the reaction largely depends on the current historical moment in the United States. At the same time, there is also a very emotional reaction.”
‘Where it should be’
P: Lula said that The Secret Agent is an essential film to prevent the violence of the dictatorship from falling into oblivion. Does Brazilian cinema have an important political role today, in this sense?
R: “I have no obligation to make political films, I don’t see it that way.
If you make a film or tell a story in an honest, frank and knowledgeable way about what you are talking about, you will probably be making or contributing to a better understanding of the country and society.
I think my films have contributed in some way to the debate, but they were not designed or edited for that.”
P: Wagner Moura [“Guerra Civil”, “Tropa de Elite”] participates in one of his films for the first time. Can he win the Oscar for best actor?
R: “He’s a great actor, a great artist, a great person and he’s exactly where he should be.”
P: You have been very open in your political stances. Do you see cinema as a form of resistance?
R: “I don’t make films to be standards of resistance, but I believe that art, artistic expression, can work very well as a piece of resistance.”
*AFP
