The Secret Agent: "A country that installs amnesia as an objective is really fascinating. In 1979, the military proposed forgetting everything that had happened until then—all the violence..."

In this vHopeful Conversation, Vanessa Hope speaks with Brazilian writer‑director Kleber Mendonça Filho about his Oscar‑nominated film The Secret Agent, exploring how an intimate character study becomes a layered portrait of Brazil under military dictatorship and its haunting echoes in the Bolsonaro era. Kleber discusses drawing on his archival work in Pictures of Ghosts, the iconic Veraneio police car and other precise period details, and the tense, Western‑inflected opening sequence that reveals Wagner Moura’s quietly heroic protagonist through his reaction to absurd violence and petty corruption. They delve into the collaboration with DP Evgenia Alexandrova and the city of Recife as a living character, the film’s dense, radio‑worthy soundscape and bold music choices, and how the 1979 amnesty law—and a state‑imposed culture of forgetting—shaped the film’s structure, its tragic final movements, and its urgent resonance for countries everywhere now trending authoritarian. Get full access to Dream of a Better World at vanessahope.substack.com/subscribe