Brazilian critic-turned-filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho has built a sterling reputation over 20 years at festivals and in cinephile circles. With The Secret Agent, his twisty, prize-winning thriller, he seems poised to cross over into even wider recognition. Using clips from his past films, spanning melodrama, documentary, and horror, always with an eye on politics, this session will highlight some of Mendonça’s abiding themes and artistic signatures—with the goal of opening up even more inroads into his newest work. Recommended Viewing: We’ll definitely look at parts of Neighboring Sounds (2012) and Pictures of Ghosts (2023), which deserved larger audiences in the U.S. But you can’t go wrong with any Mendonça film, including his fascinating character study Aquarius (2016), with Sonia Braga, or Bacurau (2019), his violent, sci-fi inflected parable of a popular uprising in an Amazonian village. All are streaming on multiple services.