By Manuela Andreoni and Isabel Teles
SAO PAULO, March 14 (Reuters) - Millions of Brazilians are expected to watch as movie stars enter the Dolby Theatre for the Oscars ceremony this Sunday, hoping to witness one of their own strike gold for the second year in a row.
Brazil's "The Secret Agent" has earned four Academy Award nominations, including the first-ever nod to a Brazilian for best actor for Wagner Moura, who won the Golden Globe for best actor in a drama this season. The recognition comes one
year after "I'm Still Here" won the country's first-ever Oscar for best international feature film, sparking pride and excitement in the nation of 213 million.
This year, Brazilian cinematographer Adolpho Veloso is nominated for his work on "Train Dreams."
Interviews with a dozen directors, producers, executives and analysts show that two decades of government investment, including a record $267 million from the national cinema agency Ancine last year, have helped Brazil boost the number of feature films it produces, increase international partnerships, and take advantage of the influx of cash from streaming services looking to grow subscribers.
But, with budget priorities shifting and a looming election that could bring back conservatives skeptical of cinema funding, many in the industry fear that government support may not last.
Still, exports of Brazilian audiovisual services grew 19% a year between 2017 and 2023, when they reached $507 million, according to a study commissioned by its Motion Picture Association. Some hope Brazil's movie industry could follow global entertainment players like South Korea, which exports billions of dollars a year in content, partly because of substantial government support.
The industry's Oscar moment spotlights a "perfect storm" of maturity, talent and great stories, said Josephine Bourgois, executive director at Projeto Paradiso, a nonprofit that supports bringing Brazilian cinema to global audiences.
"Beyond its pop appeal, the country is also showing it is a viable partner," she said. "Brazil is a place you can work with, a place where you can do business."
FROM COOL TO BUSINESS SAVVY
Brazil's tropical cool and captivating rhythms have long piqued the interest of foreign audiences, as with 1960 Oscar winner "Black Orpheus," set in Rio de Janeiro but produced by France.
Brazil's popularity has often been undercut by its image as a tough place to do business, with abrupt policy changes, currency volatility and faulty infrastructure.
In the late 1990s, Brazil seemed to start breaking that image with an extraordinary run at the Oscars, when director Walter Salles, whose stake in his family's bank made him one of the richest men in Hollywood, came close to making history with "Central Station."
The film was nominated for best foreign film, as the category was then called, and star Fernanda Montenegro became the first Brazilian nominated for best actress. Last year, Salles got a new chance with "I'm Still Here" and took home the Oscar for best international film. Montenegro's daughter, Fernanda Torres, was nominated for best actress.
In the early 2000s, Brazil's current policy of subsidizing the arts returned in what the industry calls its "comeback moment." Production houses multiplied, and directors, actors, and other professionals from Brazil became increasingly present in Hollywood.
Award success bred business success. After "City of God," a Brazilian hit nominated for four Oscars in 2004, director Fernando Meirelles attracted projects to his production company O2, including the 2008 film "Blindness," featuring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo.
"It sparks an interest, conversations," said Andrea Barata Ribeiro, a founding partner at O2.
What really helps, though, several producers said, is government incentives.
Kleber Mendonca Filho, who directed "The Secret Agent," said much of his work depended on government funding. His first feature, "Neighboring Sounds," received funds for projects outside Brazil's richer southeastern states. The early screenplay work on "The Secret Agent" was partially financed by a government program that ended under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
"Today my name is well-established, but people forget that I started with a film that came from an affirmative (action) funding program," Mendonca Filho said.
Filmmakers aim to keep the momentum. This year, Brazil took a record 10 productions to Germany's Berlinale, one of the world's most prestigious film festivals. "Gugu's World," which follows a boy and his increasingly frail grandmother, won two awards outside the main competition.
STREAMING BOOM
Progress made in the early 2000s laid the groundwork for an industry that is now expanding as it rides the global streaming boom.
Monica Pimentel, vice president of content at Warner Bros Discovery Brazil, said that some 15 years ago, it was a challenge to find production companies to develop some shows because the market was too small.
"Today I see how these production companies are extremely qualified," she said.
Executives say the main motive guiding investment from multinational companies, such as Netflix, Warner and Amazon, is to lure Brazil's domestic TV audience, including with soap operas, as HBO did with local sensation "Scars of Beauty." But that can also spawn global crossovers.
Netflix reported global views of Brazilian content grew 60% in the second half of 2025. Productions included "Rulers of Fortune," a show about Rio de Janeiro's illegal gambling mafia, and "Caramelo," a 2025 film about the friendship between a chef and a caramel-colored mutt, that was among Netflix's 10 most-watched films for eight weeks, with almost 50 million views.
"Brazil is among Netflix's main markets," said Elisabetta Zenatti, vice president for content at Netflix Brazil, a co-producer of "The Secret Agent." "There are several reasons for this — our audience, for example, is known for being extremely engaged, driving fandom and shaping conversations."
Actors, producers and directors are pressuring lawmakers to follow countries like France and Australia and advance a bill that regulates streaming services, which would include requiring a minimum share of local content and using some revenue to fund local industry.
Brazilians are also eager to export more content.
"Under Pressure," a popular drama aired by Brazil's TV Globo about an emergency room operating under extreme resource shortages, is being adapted for the U.S. market Globo's 2012 hit soap opera "Brazil Avenue" was remade in Turkey as "Leyla," which is now being offered back to Brazilian viewers.
International attention has Brazilian artists excited about stories that can help the country understand itself. Both recent Oscar nominees explore the painful legacy of the country's military dictatorship.
"This is something that Americans are so great at, to create, to export their culture," nominated actor Wagner Moura said in a recent online conversation with Mendonca Filho.
To think that Brazilians can do that, too, is "beautiful," he added, "not only for foreigners but for ourselves."
($1 = 5.2765 reais)
(Reporting by Manuela Andreoni and Isabel Teles in Sao Paulo; Editing by Christian Plumb and Nick Zieminski)
