Kleber Mendonça Filho

Directing

Kleber Mendonça Filho

Born

1968-11-22 (57)

Place of birth

Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

Known for

Directing

Credits

51 titles

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, Cope…

Known for

Film credits

2020s · 3 titles

2010s · 4 titles

Series credits

Behind the camera

The Secret Agent poster
7.1

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
7.1

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
7.1

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

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

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

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

Travelling poster
2.0

Early experiments with VHS. Metros kinda look the same.

Travelling

1991

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

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

Mens Sana in Corpore Sano poster
7.5

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

2011

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

The Little Cotton Girl poster
4.0

The urban legend of the "cotton girl." The dead girl appeared in the bathrooms of schools to terrorize children.

The Little Cotton Girl

2002

The Little Cotton Girl poster
4.0

The urban legend of the "cotton girl." The dead girl appeared in the bathrooms of schools to terrorize children.

The Little Cotton Girl

2002

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

Sleep with Your Eyes Open poster
5.7

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

2024

Homem de Projeção poster
6.0

Short documentary about Cine Art Palácio in Recife-PE, Brazil.

Homem de Projeção

1992

Homem de Projeção poster
6.0

Short documentary about Cine Art Palácio in Recife-PE, Brazil.

Homem de Projeção

1992

Homem de Projeção poster
6.0

Short documentary about Cine Art Palácio in Recife-PE, Brazil.

Homem de Projeção

1992

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

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

South of Tehran poster
NR

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi recalls the cinephilia of his youth from the surreal remove of the 2025 New York Film Festival. This is the first film in an annual initiative titled NYFF Encounters, a commissioning program that invites one filmmaker with a film in the New York Film Festival to create an original short during the course of the festival. Selected by the festival’s Artistic Director and programming team, the participating filmmaker will produce a short film shot at least in part at NYFF.

South of Tehran

2026

Friday Night, Saturday Morning poster
5.3

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

2006

Friday Night, Saturday Morning poster
5.3

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

2006

Friday Night, Saturday Morning poster
5.3

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

2006

Casa de Imagem poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Casa de Imagem

1992

Casa de Imagem poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Casa de Imagem

1992

Casa de Imagem poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Casa de Imagem

1992

Jogo sem Gandula poster
8.5

A not very good little digital still camera, our little neighbours and a football. Home movie.

Jogo sem Gandula

2011

Jogo sem Gandula poster
8.5

A not very good little digital still camera, our little neighbours and a football. Home movie.

Jogo sem Gandula

2011

Eletrodoméstica poster
6.4

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

2005