When Penélope Cruz walked onstage at the Academy Awards last March, she uttered three words that marked a turning point for Brazilian cinema: “I’m Still Here.” Presenting the award for Best International Feature, Cruz announced the film directed by Walter Salles and starring Fernanda Torres as the winner. Across Brazil, people celebrated in bars and public squares that warm Carnival Sunday night as if the country had just won the World Cup. In a way, it had: It was the first time Brazil had ever brought an Oscar home.
Only weeks later, “The Secret Agent”, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, took home Best Director and Best Actor (for Wagner Moura) at the Cannes Film Festival. Distributed in the U.S. by Neon, the film is now expected to follow the footsteps of “I’m Still Here”; currently, Petra Costa’s documentary “Apocalypse in the Tropics” is also positioned for an Oscar nomination. By early 2025, a sense of rebirth permeated the industry. With three major international victories in a row — the Oscars, Cannes, and Berlin, where Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail” won the Grand Jury Prize — Brazilian cinema seemed to have rediscovered a long-awaited sense of stability.
Yet as the year draws to a close, those red carpets and golden trophies haven’t translated into greenlights for those working behind the cameras. The very system that made this resurgence possible is now stalling — and must be jump-started to deliver on the promise of a strong, steady industry symbolized by Salles’ Oscar win.
Oscar-nominated “I’m Still Here” producer Rodrigo Teixeira summed up the moment with both excitement and caution. “Brazilian cinema is enjoying an incredible level of visibility — maybe the best in decades — but that doesn’t mean the system works,” he said. “We need to make films consistently, not just when the political winds blow our way.” Teixeira, who works across Brazil, Europe, and the United States, has a rare vantage point, knowing the inner workings of three production ecosystems. In his view, Brazil “has the talent and the ideas — but not the predictability.”
The numbers underscore the paradox. A study by the MPA (Motion Picture Association) and Oxford Economics found that Brazil’s audiovisual industry now generates about R$ 70 billion a year (roughly $1.3 billion U.S.D.) and supported 608,970 jobs in 2024 — more than the country’s automotive sector. Yet Brazil still lacks an industrial policy that treats cinema as a strategic sector rather than an artistic exception. This absence of consistent structure resurfaces with every political cycle, subjecting the industry to a roller coaster of incentives and setbacks.
A Stalled Machine
Today’s wave of success stems from a framework of public policy decades in the making. Since the creation of the Audiovisual Law in 1993 and the Sectorial Audiovisual Fund (FSA) in 2006, Brazil has built a system that combines tax incentives, public grants, and direct investment. In theory, it’s a mechanism capable of sustaining a robust industry. In practice, the machine has jammed.
Ana Paula Sousa, a journalist and film professor at ESPM-SP, noted that Brazil’s model is unique in its scope. “No other Latin American country has such a comprehensive system, from screenwriting to distribution. The problem is that it’s become too slow,” she said. Each step — project evaluation, funding approval, auditing — has piled up in endless bureaucratic queues, delaying production by years.
Sousa, author of the book “The Cinema You Don’t See: The Political War Behind Brazilian Film Production in the 21st Century,” said part of the paralysis stems from staff shortages and overlapping duties at Ancine, Brazil’s national film agency. “Many of the agency’s most experienced professionals left during years of institutional dismantling, and the new teams are still finding their footing,” she explains. “It’s a system that depends on people, not just on rules — and when people leave, the engine stops.”
The FSA, the country’s main source of public film funding, currently has more than 800 approved projects awaiting disbursement. Some of the money is frozen due to budgetary or legal impasses. Meanwhile, producers are racking up costs and missing deadlines for international co-productions. “A European investor doesn’t understand what it means to wait two years for a funding decision,” Teixeira said. “That kills a project before it begins.”
The contrast between the pace of artistic creation and the speed of government bureaucracy has become emblematic of what Brazil must overcome. In October, the Ministry of Culture announced R$ 100 million in new audiovisual investments for the state of São Paulo — a welcome gesture, but one that doesn’t change the structural reality. It’s a short-term relief for a system in need of deep reform.
Behind the award-season euphoria lies a stubborn math problem. A study presented at the Rio2C conference in April revealed that streaming platforms in Brazil earn more than R$ 75 billion annually, yet only a tiny fraction of that money returns to independent production. The long-debated VOD (video on demand) regulation bill aims to correct that imbalance.
The bill, approved by Brazil’s lower house in October, requires foreign streaming companies to contribute a percentage of their revenue to national productions. But compromises between government and corporations have diluted the intended impact. Industry estimates suggest that out of R$ 75 billion in total revenue, roughly R$ 1.4 billion should flow into the FSA — but after exemptions and deductions, the real number won’t exceed R$ 185 million a year.
“That’s nowhere near enough for a market this size,” said Mauro Garcia, executive director of BRAVI, which represents more than 600 independent producers.
Garcia said the problem isn’t just the amount but the distribution model: “Platforms will be able to allocate some of those resources directly to projects of their choice. That weakens the fund’s public role and reduces room for truly independent production.”
In other words, a law designed to democratize the market could end up reinforcing its inequalities, a side effect already seen in other countries.
A Fragile Ecosystem
Regulatory uncertainty also scares off foreign investors. “No one wants to enter a market where the rules change every year,” Teixeira said. “Cinema depends on trust, not surprises.” That legal instability, combined with the slow pace of public funding, has created a paralyzing climate. Award-winning filmmakers return home to find a system incapable of supporting them.
For mid-size producers — those without access to international funds — each new public grant cycle brings renewed hope, followed by years of waiting. “It’s a limbo,” said Garcia. “You have a project approved, but no idea when you’ll actually be able to shoot. Meanwhile, you have to pay staff, rent, consultants. It’s impossible to plan.”
Sousa identified unpredictability as the industry’s biggest enemy. “Brazil doesn’t just need more money; it needs a reliable calendar. If calls for projects came out every April, producers could plan ahead. Right now, they live off rumors.” Teixeira agreed, calling it “an annual lottery with no draw date.”
The situation worsens because many state and municipal funds depend on federal disbursements, creating a domino effect of delays. Small production companies often downsize or fold, shrinking the labor market. A 2023 survey by SICAV (Sindicato Interestadual da Indústria Audiovisual) found a 44% drop in production volume, a direct consequence of administrative bottlenecks and lack of predictability. Paradoxically, it remains one of Brazil’s fastest-growing sectors in revenue, as noted by the MPA and Oxford Economics. The market generates wealth but not stability; it’s large and labor-intensive yet still precarious.
New Policies, Old Tensions
While Congress debates VOD regulation and the restoration of the FSA, another challenge looms: rebuilding Brazil’s film ecosystem after years of political dismantling and economic crisis. The country entered a recession between 2014 and 2016, ending the decade with stagnant GDP and high inflation that eroded purchasing power and drastically reduced cultural investment.
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 made things worse. According to studies by Ancine, BRAVI, and Tela Viva, film production fell by roughly 80%, with shoots halted, funding calls suspended, and dozens of independent producers shutting down. Reports by UniCEUB (Brasília University Center) based on Ancine data recorded a 35.3% drop in film releases from 2019 to 2020, while trade publications estimated that around half of production companies laid off staff at the height of the crisis.
The governments of Michel Temer (2016–18) and Jair Bolsonaro (2019–23), the far-right icon, accelerated the institutional collapse. Temer downgraded the Ministry of Culture to a sub-secretariat under the presidential office, stripping it of autonomy and budget. Bolsonaro went further: on his first day in office, he abolished the ministry altogether, dismantled cultural councils, and froze audiovisual funds. The result was near-total paralysis. Today’s challenge is not merely to unfreeze money, but to rebuild a dismantled policy and redefine who has access to it.
Behind the scenes, the industry now faces a delicate debate between representation and efficiency. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said recent funding programs have prioritized identity-based criteria — race, gender, geography — without equally strong technical evaluation mechanisms. “The goal of promoting diversity is legitimate and necessary,” the source said, “but when political criteria outweigh technical ones, the system risks stalling again.”
The debate — present across the cultural sector but particularly intense in film — reveals a tension between inclusion and predictability. Brazil is striving to correct decades of invisibility for Black, Indigenous, and female filmmakers while trying to rebuild a bureaucracy that works.
Sousa argues that balance is crucial. “Affirmative policies are essential, but they need structure and training behind them. Otherwise, we build inclusion without support.” That gap is what institutions like Projeto Paradiso, a nonprofit dedicated to developing Brazilian talent and screenwriting, aim to fill.
“Our focus is on preparing professionals to engage with the global market,” said Josephine Bourgois, executive director of Projeto Paradiso. In just over five years, the initiative has supported more than 500 projects and scholarships, connecting young writers and producers with international programs. “It’s not enough for Brazil to have great ideas,” she added. “Those ideas need to travel and be understood abroad.”
A recent Ancine study found that Brazil’s audiovisual sector faces a shortage of skilled technical professionals — a bottleneck that limits production growth. In this context, the Paulo Gustavo Law, passed in 2022 and implemented in 2023, injected R$ 1.06 billion into the industry, distributing funds across all states and capitals. The measure played a crucial role in restarting shoots and rehiring crews — a welcome lifeline, though far from a structural fix.
Projeto Paradiso’s work highlights that middle ground between public policy and market logic, a bridge in an otherwise fragmented ecosystem. “When there’s a gap between funding cycles, professionals lose momentum,” Bourgois said. “Our role is to keep the flame alive between one round and the next.”
The metaphor neatly describes Brazil’s current predicament: preventing its international momentum from fading while domestic gears still grind.
The Long Road to Rebuilding
Institutional reconstruction also runs through Ancine, now trying to rebuild its staff and credibility. In November, the agency announced a new calendar of funding calls and a plan to simplify accountability processes — steps producers see as positive, though still insufficient.
“It takes more than political will,” said BRAVI’s Garcia. “The machine is tired. Many public servants have left, and those who remain are overworked. What we need is regulatory intelligence and modern management.”
Brazilian cinema knows this cycle of collapse and revival all too well. In the 1990s, President Fernando Collor de Mello dismantled the state-run Embrafilme and shut down public film funding, triggering a devastating blackout. When Carla Camurati’s Carlota Joaquina, Princess of Brazil grossed R$ 1.29 million in 1995, it became the unlikely symbol of a rebirth later dubbed the Retomada — the “film comeback.”
By the decade’s end, Bruno Barreto’s “Four Days in September,” Fábio Barreto’s “O Quatrilho,” and Salles’ “Central Station” were all Oscar nominees; Fernanda Montenegro, a national icon and Fernanda Torres’ mother, earned a historic Best Actress nomination. In the early 2000s, Fernando Meirelles’ “City of God” scored nominations for directing, screenplay, editing, and cinematography, cementing Brazil’s global reputation. The “Retomada” was real — but full maturity still hasn’t arrived.
Since 2023, Brazil’s Ministry of Culture has been working to rebuild audiovisual policy. Initiatives once discontinued, like the Reunião com o Setor dialogue series, have resumed, and there are ongoing efforts to decentralize production beyond Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Yet progress is slow. Many pre-2020 projects remain on hold, and new funding lines are advancing at a crawl.
Teixeira sees this moment as a chance to redefine priorities. “Brazil needs to treat cinema as an industry, not as a government pet project. As long as we depend on the goodwill of whoever’s in office, there won’t be consistency.”
Despite the gridlock, signs of adaptation are emerging. The rise of FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) channels — a trend discussed at this year’s Rio2C — has opened new windows for Brazilian films and series on digital platforms. The model, which offers free content supported by advertising, could become a key outlet for independent productions sidelined by major streamers. Meanwhile, the international success of “I’m Still Here” and “The Secret Agent” has reignited global interest in Brazilian stories.
At the same time, Brazil faces the same global challenge as everyone else: bringing audiences back to theaters. According to Ancine and Comscore, the country saw a 19.6% increase in attendance and 24.9% growth in box-office revenue in 2024 compared with the previous year. Even so, admissions remain below pre-pandemic levels, reflecting a slow transition from streaming consumption back to the big screen.
For this moment to translate into lasting stability, the gears of creation, funding, and distribution will need to align. Brazilian cinema closes 2025 with rare global visibility — and a domestic market still under reconstruction. “There’s no strong cinema without strong policy,” said Sousa. Brazilian film, she added, is as resilient as the Brazilian people themselves.
“The Secret Agent” opens in New York on November 26 and in Los Angeles on December 5.