On Friday, December 19th, at 7:30 PM, Payday Report, in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, is hosting the opening screening of The Secret Agent at Harris Theater followed by a panel with top Brazilian film critic Flavia Guerra. Tickets can be purchased here.
PITTSBURGH, PA - As an American trade unionist from Pittsburgh, who studied in Brasil 20 years ago during the Bush era, I've always been inspired by stories of Brazilian trade unionists like Lula, who organized massive strikes to bring down the dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1988. But for decades, the only films that most Americans saw about Brasil were about drug traffickers and gringos going to Rio to fall in love with Brazilian women.
Now that's all changing as a new generation of films like The Secret Agent, premiering this month in the United States, have emerged depicting the heroic efforts of Brazilians who successfully fought the dictatorship.
These Brazilian anti-fascist films are finding record-breaking financial success in the United States. At a time when many Americans are scared of Trumpism, these Brazilian films are providing hope by showing Americans how Brazilian activists persevered and prevailed against oppressive conditions unimaginable to most of us.
It began last year with the film I'm Still Here, the first Brazilian film to win an Oscar, becoming the highest-grossing Brazilian film of all time.
The movie, which won rave reviews, follows the disappearance of Brazilian Congressman Rubens Paiva during the dictatorship in 1970. The film focuses on the effect that his disappearance had on his wife and children. His wife, Eunice Paiva, spent 45 years searching for answers to what happened.
Fernanda Torres, who played Paiva's widow, became the first Brazilian woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Both the movie and the award provided an education to American activists who previously knew little about the Brazilian dictatorship.
Now, the film The Secret Agent, directed by the leftist Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, is slated to shatter box office records all over again. At Cannes this summer, it won the most awards of any film, with Kleber winning Best Director. Wagner Moura, known to many Americans for playing Pablo Escobar in the Netflix Series Narcos, also won Best Actor at Cannes for his portrayal of a political activist on the run.
The film centers on a professor played by Wagner Moura who goes on the run from gunmen in 1970s Brasil. It depicts how a network of Brazilians hides and protects Moura as he attempts to stay one step ahead of the men looking to kill him.
While the film uses a healthy dose of magical realism and surrealism, Kleber's attention to detail and gritty authenticity make it feel realistic.
"He doesn't lose track of reality but some things are so crazy that only crazy things can happen," says Flavia Guerra, one of Brazil's top film critics, who runs Plano Geral and is a columnist for Splash UOL. "Kleber's films are chronicles. He is a journalist and his films are written with the details of a journalist."
On Friday, December 19th, Payday Report, in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, will host a special opening night screening at the historic Harris Theater, followed by a discussion with Flavia Guerra, a Golden Globe voter, myself, and a likely special guest (more on this later). Tickets can be purchased for the screening here.
The screening at Pittsburgh's historic non-profit Harris Theater is an example of how Brazilian anti-fascist films are breaking through in unprecedented ways.
Last year, the Harris Theater hosted Pittsburgh's 1st Brazilian Film Festival. Harris Theater programming director Joe Morrison and the parent organization’s(Pittsburgh Cultural Trust) creative director Arthur Alexander, a native of Brasil, began discussing the possibility of a Brazilian film festival for some time. However, they worried they may not find enough interest in Pittsburgh.
Then, last year, the Harris Theater screened I'm Still Here to packed crowds.
"Suddenly we did I'm Still Here, and we had the biggest attendance of any theater showing it in the city of Pittsburgh, by far," says Morrison. "We know we reached a lot of native Brazilians in the screenings. And so it gave us the boost we needed to get over the finish line for this festival."
The surge of popularity coincides with the exponential growth of the Brazilian immigrant community in Pittsburgh. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, the Brazilian population grew from 1,000 to nearly 10,000, a welcome boost to the rustbelt city, which lost 300,000 of its residents over 40 years after the steel mills closed.
At a time when many American activists on the left are becoming more involved in immigrant rights struggles, Alexander thinks many Americans will see parallels between the present day and the story told in The Secret Agent.
"We had a period during the dictatorship, where masked gunmen were kidnapping people off the streets, and now Americans are seeing masked gunmen take immigrants nearly everyday. I think a lot of Americans will be able to relate," says Alexander.
On December 19th, Payday Report is very proud to host the opening night screening of The Secret Agent with special guest Brazilian film critic Flavia Guerra and light refreshments.
Tickets for the event can be purchased online here.
