AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to look at one of the most celebrated international films of the year, The Secret Agent, directed by the acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho. The film has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor. The film stars Wagner Moura. It’s set in 1977 in Brazil during the final years of the military dictatorship. This is the trailer to The Secret Agent.

ALEXANDRE: [played by Carlos Francisco] [translated] You really think you should be here?

ARMANDO/MARCELO: [played by Wagner Moura] [translated] I’m taking my son.

JOÃO PEDRO: [played by Marcelo Valle] [translated] It’s foul play at the highest level.

SEBASTIANA: [played by Tânia Maria] [translated] You have to be there very early on Friday morning.

VILMAR: [played by Kaiony Venâncio] [translated] Is that Armando?

ELISÂNGELA: [played by Geane Albuquerque] [translated] No. His name is Marcelo.

VILMAR: Armando. Armando.

ALEXANDRE: [translated] If I was you, I’d get the hell out of here.

We need to protect what we still have. You and my grandson.

HENRIQUE: [played by Luciano Chirolli] [translated] You have no idea who you’re messing with, boy.

SEBASTIANA: [translated] To a better Brazil, with less mischief.

ARMANDO/MARCELO: [translated] This man, I’d kill him with a hammer.

VALDEMAR: [played by Thomás Aquino] [translated] Do you carry a gun?

ARMANDO/MARCELO: [translated] No, but I know how to use a hammer.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer to the Oscar-nominated film The Secret Agent.

We’re joined now by the film’s director and screenwriter, Kleber Mendonça Filho. The film premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where he received the Best Director Award. He wrote the screenplay during the presidency of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, currently in prison, often referred to as “the Trump of the Tropics.”

Kleber, what an astounding film you have made.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can start off by talking about how you came up with this idea? You’re not just the director; you’re the writer. This film is being acclaimed around the world right now.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Well, the idea came together, as it often does, from different angles. First of all, I wanted to do a film with Wagner. So, to make a film with an actor, you’ve got to sit down and write a script. The second thing, I was coming from Pictures of Ghosts, my previous film, which is an essay film. And that film gave me a lot of information on Recife, my city, on filmgoing in the 20th century. And it just put me in the mood to write a story which would take me back to the past.

On top of that, I wanted to write a thriller set in the '70s. And as I was writing, I began to realize that a lot of what was happening in Brazil during the Bolsonaro years was, in fact, creeping in and being part of the logic of what I was writing, because what those people did, Bolsonaro and his inner circle, they — it really felt like they were trying to bring back the good old days of the military regime in the ’60s and ’70s. And once I understood that, I think the film strengthened its own inner logic. But it's only something that I realized much later in the process. And today, I can talk to you very openly about this, but it’s something that I came to understand quite slowly.

So, when you write, when you make a film, when you think about what you’re doing, sometimes you capture a certain frequency which is in the air. And I think The Secret Agent is very much about the past, but it’s very much about the past repeating itself through amnesia, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: For people who aren’t familiar with Brazil’s history, with this reprise, perhaps, echoes of the past with Bolsonaro’s presidency, go back to the 1960s. Talk about what happened for 20 years, up until the mid-’80s.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Well, in 1964, there was a military coup, March 1964, and that military regime went on to rule Brazil in the '60s, in the ’70s. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, it began to crumble, and yet just crumbled out of being completely rotten. 1985 is when we began to think about general elections, democratic elections. And it was a violent period. It had support by the U.S. at the time, because, of course, it was a division between East and West. I think the West and many in Brazil feared that Brazil would fall into the hands of communism. So that's one of the reasons that the coup d’état took place in 1964. And anyone who questioned or just disagreed with what was going on was either persecuted or tortured or went into exile.

And the film takes place in '77, which is towards the end of the decadence of that military regime, but where the democratic forces, they were still very much intimidated. And that's exactly what they tried to bring back in 2017 with the democratic election of Jair Bolsonaro.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2017, interestingly, Dilma Rousseff was at this table, the former president of Brazil, who was impeached. Talk about what happened in 2016 when you were at Cannes.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: In May 2016, we had Aquarius at the world — it was the world premiere for Aquarius at the Cannes Film Festival. We were —

AMY GOODMAN: Your film.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: — in competition, my film. And in April, Congress had voted Dilma out of her own government, in what I saw, and many millions of Brazilians saw, as a very cynical coup d’état, but disguised in the legal procedure. But none of the accusations really made any sense. They really felt like they were designed to kick her out of power. And they did that.

And in May 2016, as we were about to go to France, they shut down the Ministry of Culture. And, of course, I had the world stage. I was going to be, you know, communicating, talking to the international press. And as we went up the steps in the Palais des Festivals, we did a protest. We basically took some pieces of paper out of our pockets, and we informed the international press, who was not paying attention at the time, that there was a military coup taking place in Brazil. And this was, and it still is, one of my proudest moments in terms of, you know, being a Brazilian citizen and being an artist. We did what we thought we had to do.

And we went in to see the film, and once we came out two-and-a-half hours later, there was a firestorm of media in Brazil. And the impact of the protest was huge. And I really feel that even during the Cannes Film Festival, the international press began to take notice in terms of what was happening in Brazil and understanding the intricacies of what was going on in Brazil. And, of course, it was a very dramatic time.

AMY GOODMAN: We also interviewed Lula right before he was imprisoned. She was impeached. He was imprisoned. And this also goes to the issue of culture and the closing of the Ministry of Culture. Certainly, Bolsonaro understood, as Trump does, the power of the media — 

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — and what it portrays. Talk about how Bolsonaro dealt with — and you’re writing this, this film, Secret Agent, during Bolsonaro’s time — culture, how tried to shut it down.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Well, a really interesting fact is that on day one of the Bolsonaro government — he was, as I said, democratically elected in 2018. The first thing he did on January 1st was shutting down the Ministry of Culture. And four years later, when Lula is reelected and he comes back, January 1st, the first thing that Lula did was to bring back the Ministry of Culture.

So, they seem to be — and when I say “they,” I’m talking about the far right. They seem to be very concerned with artists, the idea of culture, which, by the way, is in our Constitution. The Brazilian Constitution says that public support, public funding, support for the arts and the distribution of the artistic production is in our Constitution. Academia — shutting down or minimizing the impact of ideas. So, all of these things, they are a constant. Of course, the media and the very worrying, you know, spreading of fake news, it’s almost like they work with the — some kind of a deformation of information, you know. So, all of these elements were elements that we had to deal with as citizens during the four years of the Bolsonaro regime. But, thankfully, many of the Brazilian institutions, they remained quite solid. And the Supreme Court justice did what, for me, is a very good job in terms of holding them accountable for what they did.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m looking at an article in The American Prospect, “Lula’s Investment in Anti-Fascist Brazilian Films Wins Big at the Golden Globes.” Lula wrote on Instagram, ”The Secret Agent is an essential movie to not forget the violence of the dictatorship and the resilience of the Brazilian people.” Talk about what that investment is.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Well, we really — I think we should really discuss this, because I’ve had some — in fact, some close American friends asking me if there is one way of interpreting the public funding support for Brazilian art, artists, as some kind of official government art. And this is absolutely not the case. I think that when Lula posts his enthusiasm for a film getting a prize in Cannes or in the Golden Globes, it’s very much the enthusiasm of a president who’s happy that an athlete did well at the Olympics or a math student did really well in a math, you know, international exercise. And I think the films that we have made in Brazil — and I’m talking about this incredibly diverse group of films, you know, from very young people to more seasoned filmmakers, these films have complete freedom to tackle whatever subject that they can.

And I think this is a very strong moment for Brazilian cinema right now. We are coming now with The Secret Agent one year after Walter Salles had the I’m Still Here, which also did very well. And both films, coincidentally, discuss Brazilian history. And they discuss Brazilian history in a way that official media hasn’t really discussed a lot of what happened in the military regime. So, for many people, especially young people, these films are discoveries. I overheard young people walking out of, you know, filing out of I’m Still Here two years ago, say, “I didn’t know the dictatorship was so bad.” So, I think — I think it’s a really good thing that these films become — have become hits, you know.

AMY GOODMAN: And just to be clear, I’m Still Here won Best International Feature Film, becoming the first-ever Brazilian-produced film to win an Academy Award.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yes. Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, you’re vying for that this year.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yes, we are.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about the storyline. You mentioned Recife. Talk about this remarkable city where you and Wagner Moura, the Oscar-nominated — and by the way, if he wins for Best Actor, he becomes the first Latin American star to win an Oscar for Best Actor.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yes. I come from Recife. That’s where I was born. That’s where I was raised. That’s where I live. Recife is a coastal town in the northeast of Brazil. It’s full of personality. It has a history with culture and political dissent. It’s very much to the left politically. It has many bridges. It has over 30 bridges and a river. And it has become a reference for culture, for literature. Clarice Lispector, that’s where she comes from. We have a very strong film production that’s been going on for 30 years. The success of Secret Agent makes so many people think that Recife has only just begun making films. But it’s simply not true. A hundred years ago, Recife had a really interesting cycle of films. About 11 films were made back in the 1920s. And it’s a city that I love. It’s far from being perfect, but it’s full of character. It’s irreverent. And it has an incredibly strong and radical Carnival, which is also in the film.

AMY GOODMAN: Which is truly featured in the film. Interestingly, there is a new award at the Oscars. It’s the casting award.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of this in this film?

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: I’m so proud of that nomination, because I — one thing that I love about cinema, and I I’ve been trying to do this since my first feature, Neighboring Sounds —

AMY GOODMAN: And we should say you started as a film critic.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: I did.

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, you met — right? You met Wagner Moura at Cannes.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: I did.

AMY GOODMAN: You as a film critic.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: I was, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: He was a journalist who became an actor.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yeah, and I was a film critic who transitioned into being a filmmaker. But I’m very proud of the casting nomination, because I think that you can do many things when you make a film, but one of them that I find always important is to present, in a very natural way, the faces, not only for the film, but for the country where I come from. When I see a great American film, I’m really looking at the faces, or a French film or an Australian film. In my case, I think I come from — I think Brazil really has the best faces, because we are such an interesting mixture of so many things, you know? We are Indigenous. We are Black and white and Caucasian and all of this mixed together in a really interesting way. And I’m very proud of the panorama, the human panorama, that you see in The Secret Agent.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, nearly half of the Brazilian population identifies as either Black or Brown, making Brazil the Blackest country outside of Africa. I want to go to a clip right now. You set it up for us. This is from The Secret Agent. It’s around the coffee table?

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yes. This is in Sebastiana’s house, and they’re having this lovely meeting.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go.

SEBASTIANA: [played by Tânia Maria] [translated] I don’t want to see you sad. Come see my little museum. Look at this. That’s my niece, Geisa, when she was little. In this one, she’s all grown up.

ARMANDO/MARCELO: [played by Wagner Moura] [translated] Is that you there?

SEBASTIANA: [translated] That’s me and my lover at the time, Andrea. That was in Italy, in Sassuolo.

ARMANDO/MARCELO: [translated] Really? You lived in Italy?

SEBASTIANA: [translated] For seven years, from ’36 to ’42.

CLÁUDIA: [played by Hermila Guedes] [translated] You never told me that.

SEBASTIANA: [translated] You never asked. I only came back when the war ended. I went to Italy to study music. Then I stayed. Things kept getting worse. I was unable to come back. Over there, I was a communist, then an anarchist, or the other way around. I forget. I saw something there with my own eyes that I’m not telling you. I’ll take it to my grave.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Sebastiana, played by Tânia Maria. And you see Wagner Moura in the background, the star of this film. He is the secret agent. So, tell us the storyline and what she represents, Sebastiana.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Well, when I was writing the script, one other thing that I felt very strongly about the recent years in my country was that as bad as things were, we found a lot of joy and love in the people we like, the people we hang out with, the friends we love, family members, and it’s very important to hang out, to be with the people you love. And it all began with Zoom meetings because of the pandemic. And then, as the pandemic, you know, became less of a disruption, we really would get together, you know, three times a week.

And that’s how Sebastiana’s place became a major development in the film. She is this very complex, wonderful woman. And in this scene, we learn that she has had a very, let’s say, sophisticated personal history. And that’s when you understand that she brings these people together, and she protects them in a way. She makes them interact with each other. And this, finally — this is, in fact, a very important sequence in the film that comes very late in the film.

AMY GOODMAN: And you’re featuring an elder here. She’s, what, 79 in real life.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Memory, as we look back in time at Brazil.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Oh, yeah. In her early scene in the beginning of the film, she says, “I’m 77, born in 1900,” you know. So it gives us a true sense of time and how time passes. The film, of course, is set in 1977. So, I think the whole notion of time is so cinematic. I mean, cinema itself is time, not only through the narrative, but once we finish a film, it becomes a piece of archive. And this is something that I always have in mind when I make a film. I mean, what we’re — this conversation we’re having this morning here in New York City, it will be a piece of archive in the future, and I always have that in mind, you know.

AMY GOODMAN: Introduce us to the hairy leg.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: The hairy leg is a wonderful urban legend. And the urban legend of the hairy leg was developed by two journalists, one of them called Raimundo Carrero. He worked in a newspaper in Recife, Diario de Pernambuco, which is featured in the film. And he came up with the hairy leg as a way, a deterrent to deal with censorship. He could not write about what actually happened involving the security forces, the police, the military police, because they were very violent against the people. So, instead of having his articles censored and slashed, he came up with the hairy leg. And he began to print straight stories, where the incidents would be described in a journalistic fashion, but instead of saying that the military forces did it, he said that the hairy leg did it. And it would come with cartoons and drawings of this zombie, disembodied leg attacking people. And it became a cultural and popular phenomenon, because, of course, the radio picked it up and did radio plays with the hairy leg. And little kids — I remember as a little kid in the '70s being terrified of the hairy leg. And I think it's a fascinating development of a dictatorship. It reminded me a little bit of how the Czech press had to deal with, you know, the Soviet invasion, using the media, but not really being open about what they were, just using suggestion. And for many years, I wanted to use it in a film, and it finally happened. I think it’s a great scene in the film, which gets quite a lot of reactions, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the hairy leg in The Secret Agent.

TEREZA: [played by Isabél Zuaa] [translated] “A local man named Pedro Jorge do Nascimento, 27, a student, living in the Mustardinha district, was out on an evening walk in 13 de Maio Park with a friend by the name of Alexandrino Borges, 32, a dental prosthetist living at Bomba do Hemetério, when they were caught by surprise by a shadow that came hopping out of nowhere and started kicking them.”

But this is so odd.

HAROLDO: [played by João Vitor Silva] [translated] Odd, but we all know what that is, don’t we?

TEREZA: [translated] It’s treated as news in the paper!

CLAUDIA: [played by Hermila Guedes] [translated] Tereza, read the bit about the attack. It’s great. Read it.

TEREZA: [translated] But you’ve read it.

CLAUDIA: [translated] But it sounds so much better in your Angolan accent.

TEREZA: [translated] Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Another clip from The Secret Agent, the four-times Oscar-nominated film. This is also focusing on a newspaper that they’re reading.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Yeah, there is this idea in the film. It’s not something that I planned. I just realized once I was rereading the script, and then I embraced that idea. Everything you see in the newspapers in this film is either imprecise, wrong or just fantasy or lies. And it doesn’t only come from the fact that we are dealing with the dictatorship and the newspapers were used to make the dictatorship work morally, let’s say. But it also comes from my own experience working in a newsroom in the '90s. I was a journalist and professional journalist. And I saw many decisions going on in the newsroom which had to deal with someone's maybe losing money if something is going to come out, or maybe we should not name that person, or maybe we should give it another word to make it sound less harsh. And this is something that, coming out of journalism school, it was quite a learning experience, because, of course, in journalism school, you learn what the world should be, and in the newsroom, you understand what it has to be.

AMY GOODMAN: As we’re talking now, the U.S. and Israel have just bombed Iran. Iran has retaliated, attacking other Gulf countries. You wake up on Saturday morning. This is the time leading up to the Oscars, but it’s more than that. It’s a time when a film like this about a dictatorship is getting global attention. And what were your thoughts?

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: I can’t help thinking that history is a cycle of repetitions. I’m 57 years old now. And over the years, I have seen so many hyperviolent, brutal developments that have to do with aggression, just violence and land grabs. It’s just a history —

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, your film, Secret Agent, has dead bodies strewn throughout.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Well, yeah, my Neighboring Sounds is very much about a land grab. That’s not at the center of the film, but once you understand the whole film, it’s about someone stealing land. And in a way, it is always very shocking, but it also seems to follow a script, which is a very sad script, if you observe it as a citizen, as someone who feels love and who has children and wants people to get on and, you know, believes in friendship. And I believe in artistic expression, so what I do is I try to make films which have the logic of the world and have the logic of violence and aggression, but at the same time they’re very much about love. And that’s what I try to do. And The Secret Agent, I think, is a film that is quite dark, but it’s also full of affection and full of love. That’s what I try to do.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we end, I want to ask you about, and some probably would say I should have started with this, but the storyline of The Secret Agent. Tell us who the secret agent is.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: The storyline of The Secret Agent is — it probably subscribes to my love for the logic of memory. You can tell me a story, and we’re having coffee. And then, at some — and I’m very involved, and I’m listening. You know, I’m full of attention to what you’re telling me. But at some point, you say, “Kleber, I’m sorry. I told you the story in the wrong order, because I had to mention someone else.” And I love that, because that’s your involvement with this. It’s like I’m inside your head now.

And I think the storyline in The Secret Agent is probably as relevant as the way that the story is told. So, it’s very much about a reconstruction of time. Many people say that The Secret Agent is about the dictatorship. I don’t think it’s about the dictatorship. It’s about a man who loves his son, but it takes place during the dictatorship, so the way they live is related to the logic of that time. And I’m fascinated by the logic of that time. If I made a film in the U.S. in the '60s, it would have the logic of the United States in the ’60s. It doesn't have to be about the civil rights movement. It could be the story of someone who’s opening a new cafe, but it would still follow the logic of the 1960s. And this is something that I’m fascinated with.

But The Secret Agent, to answer your question, it’s very much a thriller. It’s a melodrama. It’s suspenseful. It’s exciting. And in a way, it’s quite heartbreaking. But yeah, I’m very happy with this film.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain who Wagner Moura is in this film.

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO: Wagner Moura is an academic who has done everything right and who finds out the old saying that “no good deed shall go unpunished.” And I think when society is turned upside down and authoritarians are in power, someone who has a good idea and says, “I have a good idea,” punishment. So, I think that’s his character. He finds himself in trouble for being precisely correct in everything that he has done. He sticks to his values, and that’s a reason for his persecution. And the film is set up like a mystery and an espionage thriller, which in many ways it behaves like one. But, ultimately, The Secret Agent is very much about you finding yourself in the crosshairs of your own country for doing nothing, basically, just for being noble and right.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us, but, more importantly, for this film, a lesson to the world, not to mention beautiful art, as well. Kleber Mendonça Filho is the director and screenwriter of the Oscar-nominated film The Secret Agent. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.