# Kleber Mendonça Filho

Kleber Mendonça Filho (Portuguese:; born 22 November 1968) is a Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer, and critic.

## Early life and career

With a degree in journalism from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Kleber Mendonça Filho began his career as a film critic and journalist. He wrote for newspapers such as Jornal do Commercio and Folha de S. Paulo, for magazines such as Continente and Cinética, and for his own site, CinemaScópio.

## Films

As a director, he experimented with fiction, documentary, and video clips in the 1990s. He migrated from video to digital and 35mm film in the 2000s. Over the course of that decade, he made several short films, including A Menina do Algodão (co-directed by Daniel Bandeira, 2002), Vinil Verde (2004), Eletrodoméstica (2005), Noite de Sexta Manhã de Sábado (2006), and Recife Frio (Cold Tropics, 2009), as well as a feature-length documentary, Crítico (2008).
O Som ao Redor (Neighbouring Sounds, 2013) was Mendonça's first feature-length drama, winning numerous awards. Film critic AO Scott of The New York Times included it in his list of the 10 best films of 2012. Caetano Veloso, in his column in the brazilian newspaper O Globo, classified it as "one of the best movies made recently in the world ".
In 2016, his second feature film, Aquarius premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and was later nominated for Best International Film at the 32nd Independent Spirit Awards and the César Award for best foreign film, but lost to Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann and to Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake, respectively.
In 2013, he was the jury president of the Critics' Week section of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
His third film, Bacurau, written and directed with Juliano Dornelles, won the Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, shared with Ladj Ly's Les Misérables.
His second documentary feature, Retratos Fantasmas (Pictures of Ghosts) premiered in the Special Screenings section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
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.

## Filmography

| Year | English Title | Original Title | Language(s) | Notes |
| 1997 | Caged In | Enjaulado | Portuguese | Short film |
| 2002 | The Little Cotton Girl | A Menina do Algodão | Portuguese | Short film; Co-directed with Daniel Bandeira |
| 2004 | Green Vinyl | Vinil Verde | Portuguese | Short film |
| 2005 | Eletrodoméstica | Eletrodoméstica | | Portuguese | Short film |
| 2007 | Friday Night, Saturday Morning | Noite de Sexta, Manhã de Sábado | Portuguese | Short film |
| 2008 | Crítico | Crítico | Portuguese | Documentary |
| 2009 | Cold Tropics | Recife Frio | Portuguese | Short film |
| 2012 | Neighboring Sounds | O Som Ao Redor | Portuguese | Brazilian submission for the 86th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film |
| 2015 | The World Cup in Recife | A Copa do Mundo no Recife | Portuguese | Short documentary |
| 2016 | Aquarius | Aquarius | Portuguese | Official Selection for the Palme d'Or Competition in the 2016 Cannes Film Festival |
| 2019 | Bacurau | Bacurau | Portuguese, English | Co-directed with Juliano Dornelles. Jury Prize winner at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival |
| 2023 | Pictures of Ghosts | Retratos Fantasmas | Portuguese | Documentary; Official Selection for the Special Screenings section of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival |
| 2025 | The Secret Agent | O Agente Secreto | Portuguese | Post-Production |