Leila Diniz

Acting

Leila Diniz

Born 1945-03-25 · Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Leila Roque Diniz (25 March 1945 – 14 June 1972) was a Brazilian television, movie and theatre actress, whose liberal ideas and attitudes about sex had raised the discontent of both the feminists and the Brazilian military government of the 1960s. Born in a middle-class family and the daughter of a communist activist, Leila worked as a kindergarten teacher at age 15. At age 17, she met movie director Domingos de Oliveira, with whom she lived until age 21. Between 1962 and 1964 she had minor roles on stage. In 1965, Diniz started working in television, where she made several telenovelas and various commercials. In 1967, she also started to make movies. She died on 14 June 1972, aged 27, at the peak of fame, coming back from a movie festival in Australia, where she won a Best Actress award for the movie Mãos Vazias ("Empty Hands"), in the Japan Airlines Flight 471 crash in India.

Acting credits

O Mundo Alegre de Helô poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

O Mundo Alegre de Helô

1967

A Public Opinion poster
6.4

Documentary about middle-class people in Rio de Janeiro, in the 1960s, when Brazil was going through a hard period in its history, with the military coup and the following dictatorship. Interviews with people in the street disclose their fears, aspirations and political alienation.

A Public Opinion

1967

Divertimento poster
NR

Mario is a playboy who is married to Lucía, a millionaire who has fallen on hard times, and he also maintains an adulterous relationship with one of her friends, the temperamental and libertine millionaire Lena Anderson.

Divertimento

1967

Improvised and Purposeful: Cinema Novo poster
7.5

Originally produced for German TV, Improvised and Purposeful is a firsthand look at the "Cinema Novo" movement (otherwise known as the 'Brazilian New Wave'). Director Joaquim Pedro de Andrade focuses on six Cinema Novo filmmakers working in Rio in 1967.

Improvised and Purposeful: Cinema Novo

1967

Edu, Coração de Ouro poster
7.0

A volatile young man, Edu is a typical Rio de Janeiro middle-class kind, who flirts with multiple women at the same time. None of them, however, had managed to make him fall in love, until he met with mysterious Tatiana.

Edu, Coração de Ouro

1968

Os Paqueras poster
6.3

Two ladykillers living in Rio de Janeiro know no limits when courting a beautiful woman. A problem arises when one of them starts coming on to a girl, not knowing she's his buddy's daughter.

Os Paqueras

1969

Dangerous Game poster
5.8

Two dark-comedy stories involving blackmail, murder and love triangles in Rio de Janeiro

Dangerous Game

1967

Já que Ninguém me Tira Para Dançar poster
8.0

Conducted from interviews with personalities who lived with Leila Diniz (1945-1972), the documentary is a record of an era and, above all, it rescues the participation in Brazilian culture of the actress who opened the way for the sexual revolution during the dark years of the dictatorship.

Já que Ninguém me Tira Para Dançar

2021

Love, Carnival and Dreams poster
4.7

On Carnival's eve, girl dreams of a man to stay with her during these four days. She meets a photographer, with whom she has an affair.

Love, Carnival and Dreams

1972

Corisco, o Diabo Loiro poster
8.0

After killing a troublemaker, Cristino flees to a town in the Northeast and is forced to join Lampião's gang, where he becomes his right-hand man, under the name Corisco, the Blond Devil. He falls in love with Dadá, a farmer's daughter, and takes her with him by force. Gradually, she learns to love him, and they live together for 13 years in the cangaço. Corisco escapes the Angico massacre but is captured by Lieutenant Zé Rufino's volante after beheading the family of Lampião's informant. Dadá and Corisco, on the way to hand them over to the authorities, reminisce about the adventurous adventures of their lives.

Corisco, o Diabo Loiro

1969

A Madona de Cedro poster
7.5

Delfino, a quiet man who lives in Congonhas do Campo, a small historical town in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, is urged by his friend to steal the image of the Madona de Cedro (the Cedar Madonna), sculpted by Aleijadinho in the 18th century, from the town sanctuary.

A Madona de Cedro

1968

Mineirinho, Vivo ou Morto poster
7.0

Based on real-life Brazilian bandit "Mineirinho", the film follows the story of Zezé, a man falsely accused by sensasionalist press of being a high-caliber criminal who suddenly becomes one of the most wanted men of Rio de Janeiro.

Mineirinho, Vivo ou Morto

1967

Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional poster
NR

"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."

Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional

1997

All the Women in the World poster
6.9

When womanizer Paulo meets a friend’s fiancée, she changes the way he looks at the opposite sex. He falls in love, and believes she is in fact all women in one. Because of that, he has to face an important decision: to go on with his old life, or embrace this special relationship and become a monogamous man.

All the Women in the World

1966

The Naked Man poster
5.9

A man gets locked naked outside of his apartment.

The Naked Man

1968

The Alienist poster
6.3

Father Simão Bacamarte arrives in the small town of Serafim to investigate a certain phenomenon of madness.

The Alienist

1970

Hunger for Love poster
5.1

An extended research tour of US university film programs introduced dos Santos to the American avant-garde filmmakers, among them Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, who would directly inspire his formally radical adaptation of an allegorical short story about adultery and colonialism by Guilherme de Figueiredo. Filmed in both Manhattan and Brazil and set against the background of the Vietnam War and its protests, Hunger for Love uses a rigorously abstract soundtrack and narrative structure to evoke the acute paranoia of the period building up to the December 1968 military coup that tipped Brazil perilously close to a conservative dictatorship. With its harsh critique of the decadent tendencies of the Sixties counterculture, Hunger for Love offers a key expression of the self-consciously “ideological” phase of Cinema Novo. -Harvard Film Archive

Hunger for Love

1968

Domingos poster
2.0

A look into the life and mind of Brazilian playwright and filmmaker Domingos Oliveira through his daily activities and artistic deeds.

Domingos

2009

Mulheres de Cinema poster
10.0

Documentary on famous Brazilian actresses, female directors and the role of women in Brazilian film history.

Mulheres de Cinema

1978

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Fantasia para Ator e TV

1968

Leila Para Sempre Diniz poster
4.0

A documentary that presents home movies and several excerpts of known films of famous actress Leila Diniz. Friends of the late actress, tragic killed on a plane crash in 1972, discuss about her life, her work and her legacy in Brazilian culture.

Leila Para Sempre Diniz

1976

Mãos Vazias poster
5.0

In a small town in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, a woman rebels against local morality after her child dies, with tragic results.

Mãos Vazias

1971

O Donzelo poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

O Donzelo

1971