Read the Screenplay of Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Award-Winning Film ‘The Secret Agent’ and Brazil’s Oscar Contender
A new film has garnered critical acclaim after premiering in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Best Director Award for filmmaker Filho, the Best Actor Award for Wagner Moura, and the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film. Additionally, the film has been selected as Brazil’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th Academy Awards.
The film has also received three nominations at the Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actor Drama, and Best Foreign Language Film. Furthermore, it secured the Foreign Language Film prize from both the Los Angeles Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle.
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The story centers on Marcelo, portrayed by Moura, a widower and technology researcher who finds himself entangled in the political turmoil of Brazil during Carnival week in 1977. As a target of a mercenary killer amidst a dictatorship, Marcelo grapples with both his present danger and the haunting ghosts of his past. Filho describes his character as a “classic hero type who was not perfect, but a good man, and who did everything right — and that’s why he gets into trouble.” The film presents violence not as a spy war but as the persecution of an ordinary citizen during a time of severe oppression.
Despite his lack of political activism, Marcelo’s successful establishment of a technology department at a regional university draws the ire of the government, particularly given that power in Brazil has been historically concentrated in the Southeast. This attention from authorities leads to a dangerous pursuit by hired mercenaries. Ultimately, Marcelo’s primary goal, aided by a mysterious woman named Elza, is to escape Brazil with his young son.
The film explores the themes of memory loss and its implications in Brazil’s historical context. Following the military regime’s gradual decline in the late 1970s, an amnesty law pardoned military officials for crimes including assassinations and torture, leading to a national trauma and a pervasive sense of amnesia.
Rather than depicting Marcelo’s murder directly, the film reveals it through a stark newspaper clipping, emphasizing the impact of photojournalism. Filho states that this approach conveys the idea that “what we live in the present … will be seen as just characters in the past,” reducing Marcelo’s harrowing journey to a single image. The narrative weaves together past and present through a tape recording of a conversation between Marcelo and Elza, establishing a connection that prevents historical experiences from fading into obscurity.
Read the screenplay below.
