Documentary ‘love letter to cinema’ premieres in São Paulo

A new documentary film that celebrates the love of cinema and the enduring connections between filmmakers, their art and their audiences has a high-profile premiere in Brazil

Films to Die For, directed by Professor Lúcia Nagib from the University of Reading’s Department of Film, Theatre & Television, will have its world premiere this month at the São Paulo International Film Festival 2025, one of Latin America’s most prestigious cinema events. The feature-length documentary brings together exclusive interviews with acclaimed directors Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, 1982) and Walter Salles (I’m Still Here, 2024), producer Paulo Branco and film theorist Professor Laura Mulvey, most well-known for coining the notion of the ‘male gaze’. The ‘film on film’ or metafilm genre has grown in recent years from a narrow academic context to becoming a more popular genre.

Edited by award-winning filmmaker Tatiana Germano, and co-produced across the UK, Portugal and Brazil, the project blends original footage, film excerpts and archive material to tell a story of cinema’s intertwined lives and histories. The central theme of the film is ‘cinephilia’, the love for the medium that drives creators to strive to new heights, and sometimes even to deadly ends. For example, the film highlights Glauber Rocha, a Brazilian filmmaker who predicted his own tragic death after the failure of his final film.  

A continuum of cinema 

Through the filmic connections of different times and places woven together to tell a story of cinematic life and death, the film presents the idea of a continuum of cinema.  

Professor Nagib said: ‘Film history does not obey hierarchies and boundaries. It also breaks the idea that different types of cinema are in opposition to each other. It is possible to consider the history of film without pitting mainstream cinema against independent cinema, or between Hollywood and the rest of the world. 

‘This film delights in uncovering the stories behind the stories told on screen, and turns the camera around to focus on the creative people and the inspiring places that have changed film history.’ 

A key thread of the film follows Wenders’ The State of Things (1982) – itself a film about filmmaking – as a point of departure for exploring cinema’s inner workings. From New Hollywood to new German cinema, and from Brazil to Portugal, Films to Die For reveals how artistic energies, struggles and inspirations flow freely across continents. Films to Die For forms part of Professor Nagib’s broader research project, ‘An Amorous Discourse: Remapping the World Through Cinephilia’, supported by the University of Reading’s Research Endowment Trust Fund. The project examines how film, theory and artistic practice overlap – bringing together filmmakers, critics and scholars in what Nagib calls an ‘artistic commons without borders.’ 

The film’s premiere will take place on 23 October at the São Paulo International Film Festival (also known as the Mostra) one of Brazil’s largest cinema events. Learn more about the film and watch the trailer.