Kleber Mendonça Filho

Directing

Kleber Mendonça Filho

Born 1968-11-22 · Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

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.

Acting credits

Critic poster
7.9

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

2008

Pictures of Ghosts poster
8.0

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

2023

Room 999 poster
5.8

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

2023

Love Film Festival poster
7.5

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

2014

Bacurau no Mapa poster
8.0

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

2019

Recife, Cidade Roubada poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Recife, Cidade Roubada

2014

Passages: Travelling In and Out of Film Through Brazilian Geography poster
NR

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

2019

Behind the camera

The Secret Agent poster
7.2

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

2025

The Secret Agent poster
7.2

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

2025

The Secret Agent poster
7.2

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

2025

Critic poster
7.9

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

2008

Critic poster
7.9

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

2008

Critic poster
7.9

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

2008

Bacurau poster
7.6

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

2019

Bacurau poster
7.6

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

2019

Travelling poster
2.0

Early experiments with VHS. Metros kinda look the same.

Travelling

1991

Aquarius poster
7.4

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

2016

Aquarius poster
7.4

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

2016

Pictures of Ghosts poster
8.0

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

2023

Pictures of Ghosts poster
8.0

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

2023

Heartless poster
6.8

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

2024

Keychain poster
NR

A woman leaves her apartment to go pick up a newspaper, opening and closing a multiple of locks on her way out and back.

Keychain

1995

Keychain poster
NR

A woman leaves her apartment to go pick up a newspaper, opening and closing a multiple of locks on her way out and back.

Keychain

1995

Green Vinyl poster
6.4

A mother gives her daughter a box full of old, coloured little vinyl records. The daughter may listen to them, but she should never, ever, play the green one.

Green Vinyl

2004

Green Vinyl poster
6.4

A mother gives her daughter a box full of old, coloured little vinyl records. The daughter may listen to them, but she should never, ever, play the green one.

Green Vinyl

2004

Caged In poster
5.2

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

Caged In

1997

Caged In poster
5.2

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

Caged In

1997

Caged In poster
5.2

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

Caged In

1997

Neighboring Sounds poster
7.1

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

Neighboring Sounds

2012

Neighboring Sounds poster
7.1

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

Neighboring Sounds

2012

No artwork available
NR

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi recalls the cinephilia of his youth from the surreal remove of the 2025 New York Film Festival.

South of Tehran

2026