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Kleber Mendonça’s “The Secret Agent” is a major Oscar player this year for Brazil, with nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor Wagner Moura, Best International Feature Film, and the inaugural Best Casting award. Brazilian filmmaker Mendonça’s style is built on a love of cinema, and while he’s best known for his breakout feature “Neighboring Sounds” and subsequent features “Aquarius” and “Bacurau,” the director cut his teeth in short films. (And also as a film critic!)
In anticipation of Oscar night (and voting throughout next week), “The Secret Agent” distributor Neon will make available four of his highly acclaimed short films on www.neonrated.com starting today. The films include “Green Vinyl,” “Eletrodoméstica,” “Cold Tropics,” and “The World Cup in Recife.” IndieWire shares this exclusive announcement, with details about each film below, along with an essay from Mendonça on how short filmmaking helped shape his career.
The short films are:
“Green Vinyl” (2004) – A mother gives her daughter a box full of old, colored little vinyl records; the daughter may listen to them, but she should never, ever, play the green one… (This short will also be available via Le Cinema Club beginning on Friday, February 27th for a week worldwide).
“Eletrodoméstica” (2005) – A middle-class family living in a house filled with superfluous electronic appliances sees the arrival of a new item, a 29″ TV set.
“Cold Tropics” (2009) – A “mockumentary” set in tropical Recife, in northeastern Brazil, where temperatures drop to impossible lows and the inhabitants have to adapt; the film gradually turns critical, looking at the climate, urban development and social interaction from every angle, and asks the question – does a ray of sun pierce the clouds, after all?
“The World Cup in Recife” (2015) – A documentary that provides fascinating insight into the events and inhabitants of the city –the hometown of football legend Rivaldo—during the 2014 World Cup tournament.
And below, an essay from Mendonça shared exclusively with IndieWire:
I have been thinking about shorts a lot this week. The Oscar-nominated shorts have just been released in theaters. I hope you can go see them. There are a lot of great films nominated this year.
Whenever I say, “I am a filmmaker”, I think of the many years I was known as a “short filmmaker,” a “director of short films.” In the ‘90s and in the 2000s I made so many short films, and they turned out so well, that for years I thought I would be happy just making them. I never really saw shorts as a calling card for something bigger and more expensive, I never saw shorts as a demo for the services I had to offer. I made them because I wanted to — some cost 50 dollars and were made by myself with my friends — later they got bigger, were made with proper budgets on 35mm and a Dolby mix. They were also still made with the collaboration of so many friends.
I often get asked the question: “Were short films your film school?” In a way yes, but in fact I am still learning so much from the longer films I make today.
In fact, I have always looked at short films as exercises in cinema and storytelling that are just as important as the “feature film.” Is Chris Marker’s “La Jetée” (1962) less of a film than any feature just because of its short running time? No.
Short films are often programmed as openers for feature films, and I remember once saying in a film festival that “the feature shown last night should have opened the session for that beautiful short film that preceded it!” The director of the feature was not happy.
“The Secret Agent” is 2 hours and 40 minutes. I feel it is as free as any of the no-budget shorts I once made. “Cold Tropics” (2009) became a short film blockbuster, made over almost three years by myself, Emilie Lesclaux and Juliano Dornelles, leading us towards what became our film “Bacurau” (2019). “Cold Tropics” is a mockumentary on climate change. “Green Vinyl” (2004) is a “photo roman,” greatly inspired by “La Jetée,” and it was my first selection at Cannes (Director’s Fortnight). “Eletrodomestica” (2005) helped me understand what would later become my first feature, “Neighboring Sounds” (2012). All of these films, short or feature, are time capsules, and “The World Cup in Recife” (2014) is the clearest example of trying to capture a specific moment in history through documentary filmmaking. Enjoy!
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