Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer, and critic (born 1968)
In this Portuguese name, "Filho" is a generational suffix meaning "son", which is used for someone whose name is the same as their father, like "Jr." in English.
Kleber Mendonça Filho (Portuguese:[ˈklebeʁmẽˈdõsɐˈfiʎu]; born 22 November 1968)[1] is a Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer, and critic.[2]
Early life and career
With a degree in journalism from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Kleber Mendonça Filho began his career as a film critic and journalist. He wrote for newspapers such as Jornal do Commercio and Folha de S. Paulo, for magazines such as Continente[3] and Cinética,[4] and for his own site, CinemaScópio.
Films
As a director, he experimented with fiction, documentary, and video clips in the 1990s. He migrated from video to digital and 35mm film in the 2000s. Over the course of that decade, he made several short films, including A Menina do Algodão (co-directed by Daniel Bandeira, 2002), Vinil Verde (2004), Eletrodoméstica (2005), Noite de Sexta Manhã de Sábado (2006), and Recife Frio (Cold Tropics, 2009), as well as a feature-length documentary, Crítico (2008).
O Som ao Redor (Neighbouring Sounds, 2013) was Mendonça's first feature-length drama, winning numerous awards. Film critic AO Scott of The New York Times included it in his list of the 10 best films of 2012.[5]Caetano Veloso, in his column in the brazilian newspaper O Globo, classified it as "one of the best movies made recently in the world ".[6]
Mendonça's films have received more than 120 awards in Brazil and abroad, with selections in festivals such as New York, Copenhagen and Cannes (Quinzaine des réalisateurs). Film festivals in Rotterdam, Toulouse, and Santa Maria da Feira have presented retrospectives of his films. He has served as programmer of cinema for the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation.
