Film Festivals

2016 Cannes Critics’ Panel Day 7: Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Asks What’s Your Sign with “Aquarius”

Published on May 17, 2016

There’s a new reason to be excited about Brazilian cinema and his name is Kleber Mendonça Filho. His undeniably seminal first feature film Neighboring Sounds was the Rotterdam Int. Film Fest’s gift to us cinephiles in 2012, and so we were both surprised and elated when his sophomore film landed not in some Cannes sidebar but in the comp. Quite the accomplishment.

So far, the little responses that we have received for Aquarius is placing this film near the top. Called “a character study as well as a shrewd meditation on the needless transience of place and the way physical space elides with our identity” by Variety, this features vet actress Sonia Braga in the lead role.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).