IFFR KINO #25: Neighbouring Sounds

IFFR KINO is back on the first Wednesday of October! We’re kicking off season four with Neighbouring Sounds (IFFR 2012), the confident feature-film debut of Kleber Mendonça Filho, showing the front and back side of the Brazilian dream in Recife.

In 2007, Kleber Mendonça Filho showed five short films in a ‘Short Profile’ at IFFR. The cinephile jack-of-all-trades – filmmaker, festival organiser, critic and producer – from Recife in Brazil expanded on a theme from his short film Eletrodoméstica and turned it into a gripping, ominous feature-film debut.

The film is an x-ray of a middle-class district in Recife. In the street where a rich family owns lots of real estate, life takes an unexpected turn when a private security outfit offers its services to the residents. The presence of guards (led by Clodoaldo, played by Irandhir Santos, who is also the protagonist in Rat Fever) gives them a feeling of security, but also adds a large dose of anxiety in a society that flourishes on fear. Meanwhile Bia, the mother of two children, tries to find a way to deal with the barking of the guard dogs that gives her sleepless nights.

Neighbouring Sounds is a piece of contemporary Braziliana that effortlessly offers new insights into an apparently normal socio-economic network. Deserving of special mention: the excellent acting across the whole cast and the way in which the urban space and interior design play a leading role.

Neighbouring Sounds was supported by the Hubert Bals Fund. Mendonça’s most recent film Bacurau won the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival 2019.

Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2012, Brazil, 124’, Portugese, English subtitles