Graduated in journalism from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Kleber Mendonça Filho has an extensive career as a critic and programmer. He was responsible for the cinema department at the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation for 18 years and wrote for Jornal do Commercio in Recife, as well as for other outlets such as Revista Continente and Folha de São Paulo. He is the artistic director of the Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife and the chief curator of Cinema at the Moreira Salles Institute.
As a filmmaker, he transitioned from video in the 1990s—when he experimented with fiction, documentary, and music videos—to digital and 35mm in the 2000s. His short films (“A Menina do Algodão,” “Vinil Verde,” “Eletrodoméstica,” and “Recife Frio”) have received over 100 awards in Brazil and abroad.
His first feature film is the documentary Crítico (2008), produced over nine years. In 2014, he directed A Copa do Mundo no Recife, a 15-minute documentary made for SporTV and Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre. Neighboring Sounds (2012) was his first fiction feature, shown at over 100 international festivals, commercially released in 14 countries, and the winner of 32 awards. The film was Brazil’s submission for the 2014 Oscars and was named “One of the 10 Best Films of the Year” by The New York Times. Aquarius (2016), his second feature, had an even more prestigious run, premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and distributed in over 100 countries.
In 2018, he co-directed and co-wrote, alongside Juliano Dornelles, Bacurau, which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019 and won the Jury Prize.
