Retratos fantasmas

RETRATOS FANTASMAS is at once an autobiographical essay on urban architecture and a deep dive into Kleber Mendonça Filho’s own filmography, but it is first and foremost a love letter to downtown Recife by way of a certain kind of cinephilia. Cinemas from the past, ghostly images, a vanishing yet vivid city and some of the director’s obsessions—the apartment where he lived for most of his life and which appears in many of his films, the spectres of John Carpenter, the way architecture determines life—all make an appearance in this phantom thread. KMF returns to the same brand of humour of his short films while also exploring new territories, including a very particular approach to the essay film, one in which verbose, meditative reflections and hilarious fictional sketches can exist side by side. No words are needed to explain why downtown Recife is so captivating, it only takes one beautiful pan that starts from a terrace and unveils a large portion of the city to make its shine evident, or a superb scene of performers in the nocturnal heat of carnival, taking over the street and making it erupt. The sanctity of cinema and the everyday mundanity of Recife’s streets are always just one cut apart. (Victor Guimarães)

Kleber Mendonça Filho: NOITE DE SEXTA MANHÃ DE SÁBADO (2006, K), CRÍTICO (2008), RECIFE FRIO (2009, K), NEIGHBORING SOUNDS (2012), AQUARIUS (2015), BACURAU (2019, KO-REGIE)