Kleber Mendonça Filho Celebrates Oscar Nods and Hails Recife as Cinema Star

Pernambuco-born director Kleber Mendonça Filho celebrated, this Monday (26), the four Oscar nominations earned by his film O Agente Secreto last Thursday (22). In an exclusive interview with Diario de Pernambuco, the filmmaker highlighted the fundamental role of the newspaper, which is turning 200 years old, in the feature’s narrative, while underscoring the importance of Recife as the central setting and character of the work. The film, which is competing for cinema’s top prize, uses historic editions of Diario to set the story in 1977 Brazil, during the Military Dictatorship, creating a deep dialogue between memory, journalism and art.

With news of the nominations, daily life in the Pernambuco capital came to a halt, turning Thursday lunch into a collective celebration. Kleber received the reporter at his apartment, still in a festive mood but with the serenity of someone seeing their work recognized internationally. The director, who grew up reading Diario in the 1970s, made a point of highlighting the historic relevance of the outlet, the oldest still in circulation in Latin America. “Diario is 200 years old and is, literally, a kind of diary of the state of Pernambuco and the city of Recife,” he said, explaining that its presence in the film is symbolic, historic and, above all, narrative.

In this way, the newspaper’s pages are not just a period backdrop, but an engine of the plot. They show, for example, the death toll from Recife’s carnival, a direct result of the regime’s violence, and tell the curious case of the “Perna Cabeluda” (Hairy Leg), an urban legend born from a chronicle published in 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 seen in the film.

Pernambuco Cinema in the Spotlight

Kleber Mendonça Filho was categorical in defending the strength of his state’s audiovisual output. “Pernambuco cinema is the most auteur-driven in Brazil,” he declared, citing as examples films such as Amarelo Manga and Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus, as well as his own trilogy that began with O Som ao Redor. For him, works that are deeply honest about their place of origin create a powerful connection with diverse audiences, rebutting any criticism that O Agente Secreto might be “too local.”

The director closed with a statement that sums up his vision: “Recife is a city like any other. Making a film here turns it into a star, like New York for Americans or Paris for the French.” The remark reinforces his belief that the authenticity and richness of detail in a regional production are, in fact, its greatest assets for winning over the world. The Oscar nominations, therefore, are not just an award for one film, but recognition of the narrative power of a city and an entire cultural ecosystem.