The Secret Agent

Kleber Mendonça Filho navigates Brazil’s painful past to paint a loving portrayal of a place and its people, in this slow burning and hugely entertaining political thriller. It’s Carnival week, 1977, in dictatorship-ruled Brazil. Marcelo, a widower on the run arrives in Recife, hoping to reunite with his young son and flee the country. He finds refuge in a resistance commune run by a charismatic 70-year-old woman, but chaos soon catches up with him. Corrupt forces from his previous life are on his tail and he faces further duplicity in the city – his escape trickier with each turn. Combining political statement with light-hearted sentiment, Bacurau and Aquarius writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s novelistic feature revels in playful genre-bending detours – including a gleefully deranged B-movie inspired sequence – and soulful emotions to deliver a sweaty, sun-drenched and masterfully acted ride that is always grounded in love: for Brazil and for cinema.

Diana Cipriano, Programme & Research Coordinator

Contains scenes of graphic violence.

Audio Description is available at this screening. This screening will be presented with Descriptive Subtitles.

Relaxed screenings are presented each month for neurodivergent audiences, with their companions and assistants. More detailed information can be found at bfi.org.uk/relaxed.

Standard ticket price.

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