The Secret Agent is the SNCCI Film of the Critics.
19 January 2026
The Secret Agent, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and distributed by Filmclub Distribuzione and Minerva Pictures, in Italian cinemas from January 29, 2026, has been named Film of the Critics by the Italian National Union of Film Critics (SNCCI), with the following motivation:
“The Brazilian director chases the ghosts of his city and his country through a spy story that is both gripping and bitter. Fleeing from the police of the military dictatorship, in Brazil in 1977 a communist militant arrives in Recife to reunite with his son. It is Carnival time, the city is in turmoil, a serial killer threatens public safety, and films on the big screen portray a world of exhilarating excesses. But what does it mean today to tell that past? What remains of it in the images and places of the present? A constantly disorienting and surprising film.”