Film at Lincoln Center announces has announced the weeklong series “The Secret Agent Network,” composed of nine films chosen by Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, running January 7–13, 2026 in New York City. Timed to the theatrical release of his award-winning film The Secret Agent, the program showcases works that informed and inspired the film’s vision.
Mendonça Filho will appear in person for Q&As following a screening of The Secret Agent on January 7, the opening night of the series, and on January 8 for a rare New York screening of Eduardo Coutinho’s Man Marked For Death, 20 Years Later, long regarded as one of Brazil’s greatest documentaries.
With his sweeping and shape-shifting The Secret Agent, Mendonça Filho confirms himself as one of today’s most vital and visionary filmmakers. As the acclaimed film continues its run at Film at Lincoln Center, the director turns to some of the works that have long shaped his imagination for this special series. Drawn from far-flung corners of cinema yet united, in their own ways, by their examinations of how power operates—how authority can conceal itself, distort perception, and manipulate the conditions of everyday life—his selections move from modernist noir to prismatically reflexive documentaries to a blockbuster spectacle and an over-the-top B movie. Each forms a new vantage onto the cinematic network that underlies Mendonça Filho’s sensibility and, taken together, offers audiences a deeper way of seeing the ideas, images, and tensions running through The Secret Agent.
The series gathers together newly restored works—including Brazilian landmarks such as Iracema and Lúcio Flávio as well as Karel Kachyňa’s long-banned The Ear—alongside large-format presentations of Close Encounters of the Third Kind on 70mm, Eric Red’s phantom-limb-horror Body Parts on 35mm, and a new remaster of the gloriously unruly killer-whale film, Orca.
“What a great pleasure to put together a program of films that have been part of dreaming up, writing and making The Secret Agent,” said Mendonça Filho. “My amazing Film at Lincoln Center co-programmers Florence Almozini and Tyler Wilson invited me and helped me put this together with a true sense of generosity and curiosity. One of the hardest questions to answer as a filmmaker is ‘tell me about your references for this new film,’ so I hope this unusual set list gives you an idea of what goes on as you develop a new film out of very personal feelings about films from the past.”
Kleber Mendonça Filho was born in Recife, Brazil, studied journalism at the Federal University of Pernambuco and spent nearly two decades as a film critic and programmer. He wrote for leading Brazilian outlets, oversaw the cinema section of the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, and now serves as artistic director of the Janela Internacional de Cinema and chief film curator at the Instituto Moreira Salles.
He began making films in the 1990s, with early shorts that won more than 100 awards. His debut feature, Neighboring Sounds (2012), screened at over 100 festivals, including New Directors/New Films, won 32 prizes, represented Brazil at the 2014 Oscars, and was named one of The New York Times’ “10 Best Films of the Year.” Aquarius (2016, NYFF54) reached audiences in more than 100 countries. He co-directed Bacurau (2019, NYFF57), winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, and Pictures of Ghosts (2023, NYFF61), which premiered at Cannes after seven years in production.
The Secret Agent won Best Director, Best Actor, and the FIPRESCI Prize on its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. It was recently named Best International Film and awarded Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle and nominated for three Golden Globes, including best picture (drama) and best actor.
