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The success of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent — which caused a splash in Cannes last year and has been making waves ever since — marks an extraordinary chapter in the history of Brazilian cinema. Dealt a cruel blow by former president Jair Bolsonaro, the country’s indigenous film industry later blossomed with the return of Lula, resulting in Brazil’s Oscar victory in 2024 with Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here. Just as that film brought awards for its director and star, Fernanda Torres, The Secret Agent is reaping similar benefits, with the Golden Globes giving its coveted Best Actor award to Wagner Moura for his title role as an academic on the run from an authoritarian government in 1977 Brazil.
Deadline spoke to Filho shortly after the announcement.
DEADLINE: Where were you when you heard the Oscar news today?
KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Oh, we had some friends, collaborators coming to our home on a Thursday morning, which is unusual. We usually meet in the evenings or maybe during the weekend for lunch, so it was great. Yeah, it was great to learn, on a step-by-step basis, that we had four nominations. I’m very happy for Wagner, of course. Great friend, amazing artist. I’m also very happy with the casting nomination. I think a lot about faces when I write a film, or when I want to make a film, and I think The Secret Agent is a wonderful collection of humans, faces, actors. It’s so good to see that recognized, and the work of Gabriel Domingues, you know?
DEADLINE: Did you speak to Wagner?
FILHO: Wagner was on a plane at the time, going back to Los Angeles, so he did not have a good internet connection. For some reason, he’s always on a plane when some great piece of good news comes around. We sent him a message, and he couldn’t see the image, the picture, but he saw the information. So, yeah, he’s on his way to LA now, and he’s fully aware that he’s nominated.
DEADLINE: Did your success at the Golden Globes prepare you?
FILHO: Well, the Globes was quite an experience. It was very intense. It was quite a lot of media exposure, and we got Best Actor and Best Non-English Language. And it was very intense, but you take it on a week-by-week basis, because otherwise it just becomes too much. I’m here for the film. I’ve been traveling a lot to promote it, talk to people, go to screenings and do Q&As. And I have actually enjoyed the process and working with Neon has been quite a pleasure. They’re pretty good at what they do.
DEADLINE: There seems to be a strong sense of camaraderie among the international nominees this year.
FILHO: Yeah, well, I mean, we’re always together somehow. We’re always bumping into each other. We stay at the same hotel sometimes, and I’m happy to be part of this list of films. They’re strong films.
DEADLINE: The international category has been the most interesting category this year, because nominations have migrated into other categories.
FILHO: Well, I think I first heard of casting as being a new award sometime after Cannes. And, of course, I did think about The Secret Agent, because I really liked the idea that each film is almost like a little village. And in fact, I have made a film — called Bacurau — which is about a little village. You can tell a story like Alien, which could have just seven or eight characters, and you kind of feel as if you know those people. But then you can make a film with 60-plus characters, like The Secret Agent, and you might also get the impression that you know these people, almost like they’re from your neighborhood. And that’s something that I really appreciate. And when I first heard of the casting award, I thought, “Well, maybe somebody will think of The Secret Agent, because I really think that we have an interesting collection of faces in that film.”
DEADLINE: The film just never seems to lose its relevance, particularly with what’s happening in the world of geopolitics and in the Americas. Could you have foreseen that? Do you think the film has gained in relevance since it debuted in Cannes?
FILHO: I think The Secret Agent is very much about power, and how power can be used as a whim, or just as one’s desire to crush somebody else, and that can be someone, or a group of people, or a country. And unfortunately, that’s just the history of humanity. It just keeps coming back, and what we see happening now is a repetition of a model of power that just keeps coming back. I would say that sometimes, much like in the film, the ones with power in the film, they’re very eloquent in the way they express their desire to use power and violence. And this is something that I’m seeing more and more in the news — very powerful leaders expressing very eloquently what they will do or what they want to do.
I think that going back a number of years, sometimes we had leaders who would express their humanity and then use power in a very violent way, but now we seem to be getting things in a very straight dose of one expressing his or her way of doing things. And that is something that I think the film keeps getting quite a lot of attention for, the story that it tells. And also, I think I’ve said this a few times, I wrote the film as taking place in 1977, thinking that it would be a very good disguise, in terms of not really discussing contemporary sociopolitical situations in Brazil, for example. But after a while, I realized that I was trying to fool myself, because in fact, what we had in the military regime, they attempted to do all over again just recently. So, I was writing about the past, but it was very much about contemporary Brazil, or Brazil from seven years ago. The systems of power, they keep coming back, and I think that’s what The Secret Agent is about.
DEADLINE: Have you had any comments from Walter Salles? Because you’ve kind of taken the baton from his film I’m Still Here.
FILHO: Yeah. Walter is great. We’re always sending each other messages. He sent me a message this morning, and he’s a great supporter of the film. And it’s such a great thing that Brazil has two films that, in their own way, look at history, look at Brazil. One came last year, and the other one is this year. The reaction in Brazil is huge. The film is still doing very well in cinemas. It’s gaining more screens now because of the Golden Globes and this week with the nominations, so it’s a great moment.
DEADLINE: Before I’m Still Here came out, there was a lot of doom and gloom about the Brazilian film industry. How do you see it at the moment?
FILHO: Brazilian cinema and Brazilian culture were interrupted by Bolsonaro. He and his people don’t believe in culture. For some reason, they’re afraid of culture, and Brazil has a very sound funding system for culture. It’s in our constitution, and they somehow managed to poison, in terms of the media, a government that supports culture. And once Lula came back and Bolsonaro lost the election, the whole system was brought back, as it has been part of what we do in culture for the last 40 years.
So now Brazilian cinema is back. We have five or six new films at the Berlinale. We have films in Rotterdam. We have Adolpho Veloso, who was nominated for Best Cinematography in Train Dreams. The Secret Agent has four Oscar nominations, so it’s a very strong moment for Brazilian cinema. And one thing I did when I got the Golden Globe was to dedicate the award to young filmmakers. I think a lot about filmmakers in Brazil, of course, but I also think about young filmmakers everywhere. And I think it’s a really strong time to be a young filmmaker, to express your ideas in the US, for example, or in Europe.
DEADLINE: Am I right to think that this is Udo Kier’s last movie. How do you feel about your work with him?
FILHO: I love Udo. I love thinking about him. Sometimes you meet someone — and I’m very lucky that I happen to know a number of people like this — you know that there is only one person like that in the whole world. They only made that one model, you know? And you’re quite sure of it. And Udo was one of these people. I mean, you can be cynical about it, and you can say making films is about making money, but I’m still at the stage where I think that making films is about wanting to do something together with somebody else. So, I found myself writing the script, and the suddenly I go, “This is going to be Udo.” I wanted him to love the role, and then I sent it to him, and he did. He came to set, I think, in July ’24, and we spent a week working together. We saw the film together at the Aero in Santa Monica. He sat next to me, and it’s a great memory. He was the same Udo, with the same energy. We had a few drinks, we hugged, and he left, and two months later he died.
I’d just like to point something out. The last shot of him, in all of cinema, is in The Secret Agent, and the last shot of him in The Secret Agent, he’s at carnival, just looking up, with this great light from Evgenia [Alexandrova], our DoP. You can see his blue eyes, and he’s just in a trance. And that’s his last shot in cinema, which is, I think, very fitting for somebody who has done so many films. I think of him in Madonna’s “Deeper and Deeper” video. I think of Gus Van Sant’s wonderful role for Udo in My Own Private Idaho, and, of course, I think of Flesh for Frankenstein and The Story of O. I’m very privileged, I think. It’s quite an honor to have worked with him. He was an amazing man. Amazing.
DEADLINE: One more thing. Even though filmmaking is not the subject of the movie, it’s there. It’s about the importance of film and culture in Brazil, and I really thought you smuggled that in quite interestingly. Do you see the film as being a love letter to cinema? I know that’s an old and overused phrase, but how important is the making of cinema to the films you make?
FILHO: I find it natural, it’s like bacon and eggs. The tricky thing is to make a film and not give the audience the feeling that they’re in the wonderful, magic world of cinema. Cinema is rich enough, and interesting enough, for you to discuss it, or mention it, or to have it in your film, but without the glitz. Because going to the cinema, for many people, is like going to the supermarket. Or maybe it’s just a memory for them — some people remember films the way they remember a friend. It doesn’t mean that they are cinephiles. It just means that they gave themselves to a film many years ago and they were never able to shake it.
So, it’s tricky. I love films, and I think the idea of cinemas as public places is something that I find fascinating. And I’m happy that I managed to find a place in my movie for a movie palace from 1952, which has an amazing cultural and personal political presence in my city — something that can be said of many cities and many other cinemas. And that’s all part of The Secret Agent; the cinema is a place of protection, almost like a bunker. But that should be handled in a way that’s almost like contraband. You know? Like, you smuggle that into the narrative, and I’m very happy with that. People send me pictures of the film screening in so many great cinemas. I’ll be very happy when it hits streaming, but only once we’re done with the theatrical experience.
English (US) ·