Lauded Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho would love to repeat his partnership with Neon on his next film after a “truly great” year working on “The Secret Agent.” The director praised the major American distributor at length while speaking alongside producing partner Emilie Lesclaux at this year’s Projeto Paradiso National Talent Network Meeting, held in their hometown of Recife.
During an on-stage conversation with Variety, Mendonça Filho recalled the intense year spent on the road promoting his four-time Oscar-nominated, two-time Cannes-winning film. “I have a big curiosity about walking within cinema as a space. I have no issues giving interviews, I try not to repeat myself, and I love travelling. No one travels like we did [with ‘The Secret Agent’], but it made a huge difference.”
The director revealed he is currently writing a book about the “crazy” experience of promoting the film across the globe. “It is not every year that I get the chance to wander within this cinema space like that and get an idea of commercial cinema, prestige cinema, screening rooms, festivals, critics, audiences… It was a great experience, and Neon did brilliant work. I hope my next film also goes to Neon. No one knows what will happen, but it made a big difference working with a big player like Neon.”
Laura Castor
Asked about how it felt to work so intensely within the gigantic American awards machine, the “Aquarius” director said it is a “very particular” experience. “But at the end of the day, we are dealing with people, and these are people who love film.” “With Neon, they can make film work as a business, but they are also film people. They love ‘The Secret Agent,’ and we had such a fun, smart, and joyful relationship over 10 months.”
Mendonça Filho also wanted to clarify how he and Lesclaux “don’t get to choose many of our partners.” “I did not choose Neon; they chose me. We have worked with smaller distributors before and had great experiences, but if people are interested in your work and you have Neon as an option, it is not even a choice.”
Still on the subject of finding the right collaborators, the director recalled knowing MK2 was the right producing partner for “The Secret Agent” after a brief lunch in Cannes back in 2023. “It was immediately clear to us how serious they were about ‘The Secret Agent.’ We had a 90-minute lunch and that was it. It’s also a matter of chemistry.”
Following the astronomical success of his genre-bending period film, Mendonça Filho’s inbox is filled to the brim with meeting requests and scripts. “I’ve been getting so many requests about international projects and I am totally open,” he says. “I like the idea of making one, but I am not sure if it will happen. While it doesn’t, I am already thinking about my next film, which might be set in Recife in the 1930s.”
Kleber Mendonça Filho and Emilie Lesclaux, courtesy of Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
From the stage in Recife, Lesclaux spoke about her early days as a producer in the city, and praised the local film community for how they supported one another before regional incentives were first introduced in 2008. The leading Cinemascópio producer is now one of the biggest in the country, as well as highly-regarded internationally. One would be pressed to find a more in-demand person at the Projeto Paradiso event.
Lesclaux said she doesn’t make “nearly as many projects” as she’d like under Cinemascópio because they have a “very small structure,” but that she loves “discovering new talent and working with great people.” The French producer is currently working on a new feature film by “The Secret Agent” assistant director Leonardo Lacca, “The Fever” director Maya Da-Rin’s latest, and the feature debut of Helen Beltrame-Linné, a hybrid film loosely inspired by the lawyer’s experience of becoming the unlikely director of the Bergman Foundation in Sweden.
Prodded as to how she makes so many projects work concurrently, the Oscar-nominated producer said it is a “balancing act” because she also works closely on all of Mendonça Filho’s films from the very first seed of inspiration. “It’s not easy to manage several projects as a producer while dealing with a film like ‘The Secret Agent.’ It’s a lot.”
As for her interest in continuing to establish international co-productions, Lesclaux recalled first setting up a major co-production with 2016’s “Aquarius” after being approached by Tunisian-French director Saïd Ben Saïd. “It was a natural process that began with ‘Aquarius’ because Kleber met this French producer who was interested in his work after ‘Neighboring Sounds’ and wanted to work with us. We were contacted directly. After that, it became a financial need. Our projects became bigger, and we needed to round up the budget. But, on top of the financing aspect of it, there is also a richness in getting to know other professionals in the world we want to work with. I love doing post-production in a different country.”
“It can also be a very complicated process in certain cases,” she added. “It is a very bureaucratic, slow process that can take years and be quite challenging. But with ‘The Secret Agent,’ for example, we worked with four countries [Brazil, France, Germany and the Netherlands], and it was a very positive and enriching experience.”
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