The Secret Agent capitalizes on rise of Brazilian cinema

SAO PAULO, Brazil — The Secret Agent, a Brazilian feature shortlisted for the Oscars, centers on an ordinary man in the 1970s dictatorship. It follows an unassuming scientist and widowed father who becomes a target of the regime not because he is an activist, but because he stands up to a business owner with ties to the regime. The danger, in the film, stems from being true to himself and his values, illustrating how authoritarianism operates in many contexts.

Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, The Secret Agent has been hailed by critics as among the year’s best and arrives as Brazilian cinema experiences renewed international interest. Expanding in U.S. theaters Friday, the film is backed by major wins at the Cannes Film Festival for Mendonça Filho (best director) and Moura (best actor). Earlier this month, the 2 1/2-hour thriller earned Golden Globe nominations for best drama, best non-English film and best actor in a drama. The Secret Agent follows the momentum from I’m Still Here, which won this year’s Oscar for best international feature and a Golden Globe for lead actor Fernanda Torres. In Brazil, expectations for The Secret Agent are high. Moura said the widespread enthusiasm around the film — and the public's engagement with Brazilian artists — has made him incredibly happy. No country develops without culture, without identity, he said. You’re watching a Brazilian film, seeing a part of Brazil and its history. That matters.

Set in 1977, at the height of Brazil’s dictatorship, the film opens with a black-and-white montage of the era’s national symbols, from movie classics to hit soap operas. Mendonça Filho anchors the story in a precise time and place: Carnival in Recife, the filmmaker's hometown in northeastern Brazil. As the center of his cinematic universe, the city becomes a testing ground for confronting a country that still struggles to reckon with its past. Mendonça Filho has said that cinema—the clashing of different styles, voices and histories—is a vehicle for universality when it remains deeply Brazilian. He notes that audiences around the world can connect with a well-made story rooted in a specific culture.

Living undercover and under the alias Marcelo, Armando spends his days scouring archives for clues about his mother’s past and planning to flee the country with his young son. As his quiet quest unfolds, the streets outside erupt with Carnival revelry — a festival so embedded in Brazilian life that even the police chief appears rumpled from the celebrations, confetti still clinging to his hair. The director blends political suspense with urban legends from the period, touching on themes that extend beyond the dictatorship itself, including corruption, state violence and institutional complicity. A pivotal sequence unfolds inside a movie theater, a nod to Mendonça Filho’s cinephilia. As audiences spill out of screenings of Jaws and The Omen, shaken by fictional threats, Brazil itself is living under real terror.

Over the past decade, Brazilian cinema has increasingly revisited the military dictatorship, which ruled from 1964 to 1985. Alongside The Secret Agent and I’m Still Here, filmmakers have returned to the period in works such as Marighella, directed by Moura, about the legendary guerrilla leader who took up arms against the regime. Many of these films were made or released in the past decade, amid the rise of Brazil’s far right. Its most prominent figure was former President Jair Bolsonaro, a retired army captain who praised officers accused of torture and minimized state crimes committed during the dictatorship. Mendonça Filho is among the filmmakers who have taken on the task of confronting national memory. The military is a trauma that was never truly examined. You can’t just say, Move on, forget it. A crust forms over it. The same thing happens to an entire nation.

Popular Reads As The Secret Agent arrived in Brazilian theaters on Nov. 6, history was unfolding in real time. That same month, Bolsonaro was arrested and began serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting to overturn the 2022 election after losing to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. For the first time, high-ranking military officers were also imprisoned for their role in the attempted coup. Today, Mendonça Filho said he’s more optimistic about Brazil as a democracy. For the first time, we’re holding military officers accountable — and sending to prison a president who did nothing but harm the country.

Few stories in The Secret Agent are as striking as that of Tânia Maria, 78, who plays Dona Sebastiana. A Brazilian artisan, Maria lived an ordinary life until age 72, when she was cast as an extra in Mendonça Filho’s 2019 film Bacurau. Since then, she has appeared in six films that have yet to be released. The director said he never forgot her presence — a birdlike bearing, a voice shaped by 60 years of cigarettes and a razor-sharp sense of humor. He later wrote the role of Dona Sebastiana specifically for her. The character, who shelters political fugitives including Armando, stands out. When she walks toward the camera in a flowered dress, cigarette in hand, the film briefly belongs to her. Her authenticity carries something of many women I’ve known, Mendonça Filho said. There’s something literary about her.

Moura said he wasn't able to hide his awe at the actor’s authenticity. He pointed to their first scene together, in which Dona Sebastiana shows Armando the apartment he is moving into. If viewers watch closely, they will see that he is genuinely like a fool orbiting around her. Maria lives in a rural village of about 22,000 people in northeastern Rio Grande do Norte. There is no movie theater there. She says the only films she has ever seen are the ones she acted in. For Maria, the authenticity of her performance begins with Mendonça Filho’s script. The life Dona Sebastiana has lived is her life. I’ve always liked taking people in, and I’ve always liked complaining.

Since the film’s release in Brazil, the seamstress-turned-actor has become a national sensation, appearing on morning shows and gaining thousands of followers. She is also hoping for Oscar recognition — for the film and, perhaps, for herself. I want to go to the Oscars, she said. And I want to make my own dress. It will be red, very sparkly.