The 56th edition of La Semaine de la Critique celebrates Brazilian cinema by inviting one of the most talented directors of today, Kleber Mendonça Filho, to be the President of the jury. As a parallel section dedicated to revealing emerging talents, La Semaine de la Critique is happy to welcome the frontrunner of the new generation of Brazilian lmmakers arising on the international scene.
After his sumptuous debut, Neighboring Sounds, Kleber Mendonça Filho triumphs at the latest Cannes Film Festival with the gripping hit, Aquarius, presented in the Official Competition. His sophomore has met critical acclaim especially in France, where it won the Best Foreign Film Award of the French Union of Film Critics. Aquarius is a captivating, luminous chronicle of the resistance against corruption and stands as a bold political gesture, magnicently embodied by the actress Sonia Braga. Kleber Mendonça Filho has built up a fully coherent filmography with six short films and two spectacular features, each of them also being independent works of art.
It is hence only natural that La Semaine de la Critique has chosen him to give the Nespresso Grand Prize and the France 4 Visionary Award to one of the 7 feature films competing, as well as the Leica Cine Discovery Prize to one of the 10 short films. In order to carry out the mission of this jury, he will be joined by Diana Bustamante Escobar (producer and artistic director of the Cartagena Film Festival, Colombia), Eric Kohn (chief lm critic and deputy-editor for Indiewire, USA), Hania Mroué (director of Metropolis Art Cinema, Lebanon) and Niels Schneider (actor, César Award for Best Male Newcomer, France). The competition of La Semaine de la Critique revealed in previous years such directors as Rebecca Zlotowski (Dear Prudence), Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter), Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (The Tribe), David Robert Mitchell (It Follows), Santiago Mitre (Paulina), Oliver Laxe (Mimosas) or Julia Ducournau (Raw).