KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO - Writer / Director
Team Deakins
James Ellis Deakins
4.9 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2025
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
SEASON 2 - EPISODE 172 - Kleber Mendonça Filho - Writer / Director
In this episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, we speak with writer and director Kleber Mendonça Filho (THE SECRET AGENT, BACURAU, NEIGHBORING SOUNDS). Kleber was born in the northeastern region of Brazil, in the city of Recife, and many of his films take place in the city and surrounding areas. We reflect on the influence of Brazilian history and politics in his work, and we learn how Kleber generally approaches creating his movies set in Brazilian society. We also discuss his latest film, THE SECRET AGENT, and the choices he made for telling a story set during Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s. Kleber also breaks down the making of his feature debut, NEIGHBORING SOUNDS, revealing the influence of DO THE RIGHT THING and the real life history behind the events within the film. Additionally, we learn how a younger Kleber balanced his duties as a film critic with pursuing his own filmmaking career, and Kleber shares what his current day-job is.
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Recommended Viewing: THE SECRET AGENT, BACURAU, NEIGHBORING SOUNDS
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This episode is sponsored by Aputure
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi and welcome to Season 2 of the Team Deacons podcast, |
| 0:07.0 | a collection of informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest. |
| 0:13.0 | We never know where the conversation will take us, so listen in and see where it goes. |
| 0:21.9 | This episode is sponsored by Aperture and its new Storm XT-52, the industry's most |
| 0:29.5 | powerful LED point source light. Brighter than a 6K HMI and powered by Aperture's revolutionary |
| 0:36.8 | Blair light engine, the Storm XT-52 is both a tunable |
| 0:41.9 | white light and also the brightest ever adjustable color LED. Storm XT-52, unrivaled output, |
| 0:51.5 | only from aperture. |
| 0:56.4 | Today we're speaking with a director. |
| 0:58.9 | His credits include Aquarius, Baccaro, and this year's The Secret Agent. |
| 1:05.8 | We're pleased to welcome Clever Mendoza Filio. |
| 1:10.3 | Clever, thank you for doing this. |
| 1:11.9 | Thank you so much. |
| 1:13.0 | Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure. |
| 1:15.5 | Our first question is always, how did you get to where you are today? |
| 1:19.2 | Is this something that as you were growing up you really wanted to do, or is it something that you found later? |
| 1:26.0 | What's your story? |
| 1:27.4 | Well, yeah. |
| 1:28.9 | Since I was a little kid, I like films. |
| 1:32.4 | I love films, and I was also very much into writing from an early age. |
| 1:38.6 | And I went on to do journalism in the late 80s. |
| 1:43.6 | And basically because in his Siphy, Brazil, there were no film schools. |
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