By: Isabela Menezes, Isabela Picanço and Ana Clara Velasque (Grade 3)

This year, Brazil had already gained international recognition in cinema after “I’m Still Here” won an Oscar for “Best International Feature Film”. Recently the movie “The Secret Agent” was chosen by the Brazilian Academy of Cinema to represent once again the country, in not only one, but five Oscar nominations.

This production, directed by a very praised Brazilian director, Kleber Mendonça Filho, has Wagner Moura playing the role of a university teacher, who during the military regime, escaped from his obscure and mysterious past by moving from São Paulo to Recife. With the purpose of discovering his mom’s past, Marcelo tries to build a new life for himself. However, he ends up discovering that he was being spied on. The film portrays the harsh surveillance and the depressing atmosphere present during the dictatorship, which was a very important mark on Brazil’s political and social history.

With its moving plot, the work has already won several awards, especially during the Cannes 2025 festival. It has also received plenty of compliments from the worldwide media. The English newspaper “The Guardian” rated it five stars, describing it as “visually and dramatically superb” and as “ambitious, complex and elusive”. The American magazine “The Hollywood Reporter” highlighted Wagner Moura’s improvement as an actor: “He’s always been a good actor, but Mendonça Filho made him a movie star.”

In conclusion, “The Secret Agent” is another cinematic example that shows how our national cinema can represent the authoritarianism present during the dictatorship. This nomination proves that Brazilian stories have cultural value and can reach audiences from all over the world.

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