Brazilian cinema is no longer knocking on Hollywood’s door, but is being invited in. For the second year in a row, a Brazilian movie has found its way to the center of the award season conversation. After years of near breakthroughs, national artists are finally receiving sustained international recognition, marking a new chapter in the country’s film industry.
Last year, Walter Salles‘s I’m Still Here became the first Brazilian film to win an Oscar, for Best International Feature. It was also one of the ten selected for Best Picture, the night’s biggest award. Its star, Fernanda Torres, became the second Brazilian actress ever nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars, following her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who was nominated in 1999 for another film directed by Salles, Central Station. Torres, like her own mother, won her first Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama.
A long way of attempts
This is nothing new – the country’s first ever Oscar nomination dates back to 1963, with Anselmo Duarte‘s The Given Word‘s nomination for Best Foreign Picture. Famously, Fernando Meirelles’s City of God reached stardom in 2002 and earned four Oscar nominations, though not winning any. Throughout the years, others came close to the long-awaited statuette, such as Fabio Barreto‘s The Quartet in 1995 and Four Days in September, by Bruno Barreto, in 1997, both nominated for Best Foreign Picture.
Behind these achievements lie decades of institutional investment in Brazilian audiovisual production. Public funding programs such as the Rouanet law, which allows cultural projects to receive incentives authorized by the Federal government, have been key in allowing filmmakers to develop projects capable of circulating beyond national borders. The visibility they have achieved today reflects a long-term effort to sustain storytelling on an international scale.
This year, Kleber Mendonça Filho‘s The Secret Agent also scored some nominations by the Academy, among them, Best Picture, Best International Feature, and a newly introduced category, Best Achievement in Casting. For the first time in Brazilian history, a Best Actor nomination was secured as well, for Wagner Moura.
But why now?
After I’m Still Here, such recognition is no longer a near miss, but a secured presence. Many factors are important to the sum. Firstly, never in history have so many international pieces been so easy to access, thanks to the internet. Just as Parasite redefined the global perception of South Korean cinema in 2020, Brazilian productions now have the power to reshape how international audiences engage with Latin American storytelling.
Speaking of Parasite, it began a process of lowering the subtitle barrier for American audiences, which productions made in Brazil must be extremely thankful for. Thanks to that process, the Oscars and other international awards, such as the Golden Globes, are more global now. The industry and the audiences are less Hollywood-centered than they were ten years ago.
Besides, the rise of streaming platforms reshaped how audiences encounter international projects altogether. Rather than depending on festival circulation or limited theatrical releases, they can now reach global audiences instantly. For Brazilian productions, such shifts transformed international discovery from a rare and mighty opportunity into an increasingly accessible pathway.
The Brazilian Presence
Furthermore, the world seems more interested in narratives presented by the global south. Brazilian films are notoriously local. They deal with problems in an extremely national context, but its themes are universal, such as the importance of memory, inequality, identity and family. Not only that, but they also address important political contexts, dealing with dictatorships, democracy and historical memory.
The internet also allows communication between people from different countries, and no other country has a presence online nearly as strong as Brazilians do. It’s safe to say Brazil has definitely become a digital powerhouse. With their strength, campaigns trend worldwide within minutes. Audiences are engaged, organized and, above anything else, passionate, which widens the reach and social pressure to find a way to make it relatable to them.
The growing visibility for national filmmakers goes beyond awards and nominations. International productions have started to become more accessible, actors and directors are finding themselves increasingly less limited to national projects, and younger actors may find fewer obstacles on their way to global productions. Isolated breakthroughs now have the possibility to evolve into a sustainable presence abroad.
Therefore, whether or not The Secret Agent joins I’m Still Here in the winners hall on March 15th at the 98th Academy Awards, the new movement is sustained. No longer a coincidence or an isolated case, but the result of decades of artistic persistence finally meeting visibility.
The article above was edited by Mariana De Oliver.
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