AQUARIUS
Brazil 2016 | 145 mins
Portuguese with English subtitles
Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho

Saturday, Aug 26 
6:45 PM | The Cinematheque 
Sunday, Sep 3
5:15 PM | The Cinematheque

This second cinematic masterpiece by Kleber Mendonça Filho (Neighbouring Sounds) stars the luminous Sônia Braga as Clara, a 65-year-old widow and retired music critic, fighting to save her seaside home in Recife, Brazil. She is the last resident of the Aquarius, a vintage two-storey building built in the 1940s on the Avenida Boa Viagem. All the neighbouring apartments have already been acquired by an ambitious developer. However Clara has pledged not to leave her place until she dies, and engages in a tense confrontation with the company that is mysterious, frightening and nerve-wracking, for this is not just a fight to preserve a physical space, but all the memories and history contained within.

“It’s a reminder that the history of cinema is also a history of male directors working with superb actresses, a truism borne out in Aquarius, from the Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho. Sônia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman) stars as a widow and retired music critic whose fight with some developers (they want to evict her) evolves into a stirring look at the intersection of class, history and memory.” Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Clara (Sônia Braga), jornalista e escritora, é a última moradora do edifício que dá título à obra. Enquanto que todos os outros apartamentos foram adquiridos por um construtor ambicioso que pretende demolir o prédio para construir um condomínio de luxo, Clara está determinada a ficar em Aquarius. Através da disputa pelo espaço físico, o filme aborda temas como especulação imobiliária, passagem do tempo e memórias.

Producer: Saïd Ben Saïd, Emile Lesclaux, Michel Merkt
Writer: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Cinematographer: Pedro Sotero, Fabricio Tadeu
Editor: Eduardo Serrano
Cast: Sonia Braga, Jeff Rosick, Irandhir Santos, Maeve Jinkings, Julia Bernat,Carla Ribas, Fernando Teixeira, Rubens Santos, Humberto Carrão

Kleber Mendonça Filho (Recife, Brazil, 1968) studied journalism at the Federal University of Pernambuco and worked for many years as a film critic. In the the early 2000s, he made his first experimental short films, followed by the feature documentary Crítico (2008). His first feature film, the highly acclaimed Neighbouring Sounds (2012), premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival.