The Brazilian drama Neighboring Sounds made it onto many critics’ best-of lists for 2012 and recently won Best Feature at the Cinema Tropical Awards in New York, which recognize excellence in Latin American cinema. The film’s director, Kleber Mendonça Filho, was in town to accept the award and to attend a screening at the Museum of the Moving Image of short films he produced over the last decade. The first of these shorts was made in 2002, the year Fernando Meirelles’ urban epic City of God burst onto the international scene and Madame Satã played at Cannes. In the decade … Continue reading Culture Wars: Talking Brazilian Cinema and its Discontents with Director Kleber Mendonça Filho