Pernambuco-born director **Kleber Mendonça Filho** celebrated on Monday (26) the four Oscar nominations his film, 'Neighboring Sounds,' received last Thursday (22). In an exclusive interview with Diario de Pernambuco, the filmmaker emphasized the newspaper's crucial role, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary, in the film's narrative, while also reinforcing Recife's importance as the work's central setting and character. The film, competing for cinema's highest honor, uses historical editions of the Diario to place the plot in Brazil of 1977, during the Military Dictatorship, creating a profound dialogue between memory, journalism, and art.
With the news of the nominations, the routine in the capital of Pernambuco came to a halt, turning Thursday's lunch into a collective celebration. Kleber received our reporter at his apartment, still in a festive mood, but with the serenity of someone whose work has received international recognition. The director, who grew up reading the Diario in the 1970s, made a point of highlighting the historical relevance of the publication, the oldest in circulation in Latin America. 'The Diario is 200 years old and is, literally, a kind of diary of the state of Pernambuco and the city of Recife,' he stated, explaining that its presence in the film is symbolic, historical, and, above all, narrative.
Thus, the newspaper's pages are not just a period setting but a driving force of the plot. They display, for example, the death toll from Recife's carnival, a direct result of the regime's violence, and narrate the bizarre case of 'The Hairy Leg,' an urban legend born from a chronicle published in the Diario itself. To accurately reproduce the graphic style of the era, art director Thales Junqueira and his team worked meticulously, while journalist and researcher Cleodon Coelho wrote the fictional articles featured in the film.
## Pernambucan Cinema in the Spotlight
Kleber Mendonça Filho was unequivocal in defending the strength of his state's audiovisual production. 'Pernambucan cinema is the most auteur-driven in Brazil,' he declared, citing films like 'Amarelo Manga' and 'Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus,' as well as his own trilogy that began with 'Neighboring Sounds.' For him, deeply honest works about one's place of origin create powerful communication with diverse audiences, refuting any criticism that 'Neighboring Sounds' might be 'too local.'
The director concluded with a statement that synthesizes his vision: 'Recife is a city like any other. Making a film here turns it into a star, like New York is for Americans or Paris is for the French.' This statement reinforces the belief that the authenticity and richness of detail in a regional production are, in fact, its greatest assets in winning over the world. The Oscar nominations, therefore, are not just an award for a film, but a recognition of the narrative power of a city and an entire cultural ecosystem.