Team Deakins · James Ellis Deakins, Roger Deakins

KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO - Writer / Director

December 17, 2025·1 hr 8 min·6 clips

Kleber Mendonça Filho explains how the arrival of digital cinema transformed his small video experiments into internationally recognized short films.

It begins gently. Roger and James Deakins ask Kleber Mendonca Filho the show's plain first question: how he got to where he is today. He starts with childhood, then follows films into writing, journalism, and, eventually, directing. Aquarius turns into the craft story. He describes an ending where Clara had died and the building was demolished, then says plainly that it did not work. Cutting it saved money too. The production no longer needed a trip to Bordeaux, which makes the creative choice feel very grounded. Funding comes up in the same plainspoken way. Mendonca Filho explains that Brazilian filmmaking can draw from public sources, including Petrobras, the ministry of culture, local funds, and the national film agency. Place matters. Neighboring Sounds benefited from a quota system for the Northeastern region, back when funding mostly sat in the Southeast. From there, the conversation opens out to The Secret Agent, Aquarius, and Bakurau, and to co-productions with France, Holland, and Germany. Each country is tied to a real piece of postproduction: grading in Germany, special effects and music recording in Holland, and sound mixing in France. He clearly enjoys collaboration, but he does not sand off the awkward parts. Translation gets messy. Working habits differ. Then the hosts move toward style, using Aquarius and Bakurau to talk about transition, Western feeling, split diopters, zoom lenses, and how different-looking films can still share the same hand.

As heard by us

A clear, craft-minded Team Deakins conversation with Kleber Mendonca Filho about films made through place, pressure, and revision.

Roger and James Deakins sit down with writer-director Kleber Mendonca Filho for a relaxed, practical conversation about how his cinema took shape.

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Why you'd press play

Hear how a Recife journalist became the filmmaker behind Aquarius, Bacurau, and The Secret Agent.

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