Brazil on Film

As part of the UK/Brazil 2025-26 Season of Culture, the BFI celebrates the richness, diversity and global impact of Brazilian cinema, in a survey of almost a century of filmmaking from 1931 to the present day.

The two-month programme brings together more than 40 titles from across Brazil, spanning landmark works, internationally acclaimed and award-winning films, as well as rediscovered and recently restored gems across key movements and moments in Brazilian cinematic history.

Highlights of the extensive programme include early films by acclaimed contemporary directors such as Walter Salles and Kleber Mendonça Filho including FOREIGN LAND (Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, 1995) and NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2012), and works by emerging Brazilian filmmakers such as DOLORES (Maria Clara Escobar and Marcelo Gomes, 2025), THE DAY I MET YOU (2023) and THE NATURE OF INVISIBLE THINGS (2025).

Major films from the ‘Retomada’ era of the 1990s and 200s also feature, such as CARLOTA JOAQUINA, PRINCESS OF BRAZIL (1995), and the hugely successful Rio-set crime drama CITY OF GOD (2002), while a special focus is given to the work of the late Oscar-nominated director Héctor Babenco, who would have celebrated his 80th birthday this year.

The programme also foregrounds Indigenous and Amazonian perspectives through a strand that centres the Amazonian experience across five decades, presenting a selection of films in which Indigenous voices and ancestral knowledge redefine Brazilian territory.