Helena Ignez
Birthday: 1939-05-23
Place of Birth: Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Biography: Helena Ignez (Salvador, May 23, 1939) is a Brazilian actress and filmmaker. Helena was born in Salvador, Bahia and was attending her second year of law school when she fell in love with theater and decided to study the Dramatic Arts at the Federal University of Bahia. At the time, the Bahian theater scene was breaking with traditional Brazilian theater and experiencing strong influence from the young vanguard. She first appeared on the screen in Glauber Rocha's short film "Pátio". Helena acted in a few films associated with the Cinema Novo movement, such as "A Grande Feira" (1961), "Assalto ao Trem Pagador" (1962), and "O Padre e a Moça" (1966) before playing Janete Jane in O Bandido da Luz Vermelha by Rogério Sganzerla. After this film, she would perform in some most significant films in the Cinema Marginal movement, which directly opposed the critically acclaimed Cinema Novo -- the most remarkable being her role as Ângela Carne e "Osso in A Mulher de Todos" (1969). She also was a financial partner of Rogério Sganzerla and fellow Cinema Marginal filmmaker Júlio Bressane in the short-lived, although prolific, Belair production company. Between 1968 and 1970, Sganzerla and Ignez made almost a dozen films together and were also married and had two children -- one of which would become actress Djin Sganzerla. As a filmmaker, Ignez has directed 7 films, the most notable being "Luz das Trevas" (2010), a sequel to Sganzerla's debut feature "O Bandido da Luz Vermelha" (1968).
Movies
Joy Is the Acid Test
A film about love, also a memoir, about the trip made in the 1970s to Morocco by Jarda Ícone, an art...
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The Good Cinema
An authentically marginal cinema created in Catholic university in Brazil. One of the most intriguin...
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Embodiment of Evil
Released from the Mental Health Wing of São Paulo State Penitentiary after forty years, the sadistic...
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Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affir...
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The Mother
A street vendor who lives in the outskirts of São Paulo returns home at night and does not find her ...
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O Pátio
A man and a woman are laying on a chess-like patio. Both are trying to reach each other in the best ...
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The Priest and the Girl
In a small town in Minas Gerais, the arrival of a young priest causes a commotion in the conservativ...
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The Hullabaloo Family
A dysfunctional family, composed of a prostitute and two gay men, one strong and the other fragile a...
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The Woman of Everyone
Ângela Carne e Osso (Angela Meat and Bone), a young nymphomaniac, lives surrounded by delinquents, a...
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Copacabana Mon Amour
Sônia and her homosexual brother are both believed by their mother to be possessed by the devil. She...
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The Sign of Chaos
A customs agent, Dr. Amnésio, examines some reels of film, a documentary Orson Welles made about Bra...
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Memoirs of a Strangler of Blondes
First film by Julio Bressane shot in exile, "Memoirs" is a film about a man who repeatedly kills the...
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A Grande Feira
The naive sailor Ron arrives in Bahia to visit the famous Água dos Meninos street market. There, how...
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A Balada do Provisório
Two days in the life of André Provisório, a man with many occupations: private detective, drug deale...
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No Way, Spider
Spider, a banker, lives with three women. This tycoon is a caricature of Brazil's bourgeoisie, his t...
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Hotel Atlântico
A road movie that follows a solitary man as he sets of on a journey to the south of Brazil. The stra...
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Helena de Guaratiba
Hated by the Greeks, detested by the Trojans, Helena lives a peaceful life in Guaratiba, a fishing n...
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Baron Olavo, The Horrible
Bressane’s first color film, shot in the home of the artist Elyseu Visconti. Part of it is missing s...
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Face to Face
The story of a civil servant who lives with his elderly mother. Falling in love with a corrupt polit...
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Meu Mundo em Perigo
Elias sees his world threatened when his ex-wife, one recovering junkie, asks for the guard of their...
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Watch Out, Madame
Two maids decide to rebel against the society that oppresses them and start murdering their own mist...
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Assault on the Pay Train
Based on true events in Rio de Janeiro, in 1960, when a gang having the infamous outlaw Tião Medonho...
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Not Even God Is As Fair As Your Jeans
Close to turning forty and away from his job as a librarian due to depression, Marcos needs to take ...
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The End of an Age
They live, they act, they love. Today they remember, they relive, they live through cinema and life....
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Glauber Rocha - The Movie, Brazil's Labyrinth
Documentary about Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha, one of the most important names in the Cinema N...
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Love Film Festival
Filmed over six years in four countries: Portugal, Brazil, Colombia and United States, this romantic...
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B2
A short film made with unused footage from The Red Light Bandit and Carnaval na Lama....
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O Engano
The relationship of a woman with three men - her husband, her lover and a man who fell in love with ...
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The Red Light Bandit
Born and raised in the misery of Brazilian slums, Jorge becomes a luxury house burglar in São Paulo ...
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Oswaldianas
Collective film with five segments around the works and life of brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade....
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Spray Jet
Three artists from São Paulo - Leda Catunda, Leonilson and Ciro Cozzolino - talk about their work an...
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Grito da Terra
In rural Brazil, villagers battle wealthy land barons for the sake of their own survival....
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Rio de Topless
Topless muse in Rio de Janeiro, Ana Paula Nogueira uses the ban on bare breasts and her story to deb...
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A Última Vanguarda
70 years ago, a visionary management in education and culture as a political strategy for the dissem...
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Scent of Gardenias
Daniel is a taxi driver who’s married to Adalgisa. When she starts acting in low-budget movies, he f...
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Memórias do Grupo Opinião
Follows the story of Opinião, a theatre group created in 1964 during the early Brazilian dictatorshi...
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Nelson Carneiro: Knight of Democracy
In 2018, Brazil’s 1988 Constitution turned thirty. Known as the Citizen Constitution, it was a landm...
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São Jerônimo
Brazilian director Julio Bressane directs this religious biography on the life and work of Saint Jer...
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Carnaval na Lama
Rogério Sganzerla’s lost film. The only existing copy was lost in 1992 and the negatives are lost. I...
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The Outsiders
Guilherme, who has the police on his trail for having been involved with a niece of the mayor of his...
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If I'm Here It Is by Mystery
New Rio, 2054 AD. The Order of Truth wreaks havoc on the streets, killing every being that has speci...
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Abry
At 84 years of age, Lúcia Rocha admitted herself to a hospital in São Paulo to undergo heart tests. ...
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The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus
For this behemoth, Bressane took his opera omnia and edited it in an order that first adheres to his...
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Ralé: The Lower Depths
Young directors are filming “The Exhibitionist” in the middle of a farm in a paradise-like region. T...
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Mr. Sganzerla: Os Signos da Luz
A documentary on prolific underground Brazilian filmmaker Rogério Sganzerla....
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A Miss e o Dinossauro
A short documentary on Belair, an independent Brazilian film company that lasted for only five month...
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A Man and His Cage
The painter Tino, in professional and political crisis, receives a telegram from his mother-in-law, ...
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Antes do Fim
Jean feels trapped in the logic of longevity that the pharmaceutical industry imposes on him and dec...
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My Calendar Girl
A film in which dream and reality intertwine, A Moça do Calendário tells the story of inácio, 40, ma...
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All Paulos in the World - Paulo José
"All Paulos in the World" is a cinematographic essay about Paulo José, one of the greatest artists i...
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The Monsters of Babaloo
Daily scenes of a grotesque family living in the metaphorical island of Babaloo....
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Mulheres de Cinema
Documentary on famous Brazilian actresses, female directors and the role of women in Brazilian film ...
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Flying Geraldo
A fantastic tale in the brutal reality of a slum. The life of a boy with the rare gift of flying. B...
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Venus – Filly the Lesbian Little Fairy
In this animated fairy-tale Filly, a lesbian fairy with nimble fingers, seduces women by day dressed...
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Terno
One day away of Marcelo's wedding, the tailor, the groom and his father will have to correct much mo...
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Copacabana, Mon Amour: A Restauração
A documentary on the restoration of Rogério Sganzerla's 1970 film "Copacabana, Mon Amour"....
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A Mulher da Luz Própria
Helena Ignez is one of the main female figures of Brazilian cinema. She developed a new style of act...
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Flesh
Rare, medium rare, medium, medium well and well done. Through intimate and personal stories, five wo...
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A Vermelha Luz do Bandido
Experimental documentary short that debates over Rogério Sganzerla's Brazilian cult classic "The Red...
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The Welles Raft
The raft man Manuel Jacaré was swallowed by the sea when Orson Welles was filming It's All True in 1...
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Extracts
Extracts is a short film with images from 1970 to 1972 in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Lo...
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Estátua!
Isabel is a babysitter pregnant of her own child and can't wait to be a mother. Until she meets Joan...
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O Desmonte do Monte
Morro do Castelo was chosen by the Portuguese to found Rio de Janeiro city. It was an important hist...
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Ensaio Sobre o Fracasso
A projectionist at a porn cinema in downtown São Paulo, makes his first film in Super8, an essay abo...
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Natureza Morta
The narrative takes place in 1888 and tells the story of Lenita, a young woman, raised by her father...
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Poder dos Afetos
A study that unwraps a paradisiac scenery, reaching the subjects of Brazility and its force in the c...
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Reinvenção da Rua
Helena Ignez's first film as a director is a homage to American architect and contemporary artist Vi...
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Bring me the Head of Carmen M.
Ana, a Portuguese actress, dives into Brazil's current atmosphere of identity and political crisis w...
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Fogo Baixo, Alto Astral
Short film by Helena Ignez, for the "Programa Convida", from IMS, dedicated to creation during quara...
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Perigo Negro
Loosely based on an Oswald de Andrade screenplay, "Perigo Negro" is a segment of anthology film "Osw...
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Brazilian Cinema in the 20th Century
Two years of research and visits to collections, cinematheques and museums; almost seventy interview...
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In Memoriam: O Roteiro do Gravador
Experimental movie about Rio de Janeiro's Museum of Modern Art's Movie Archive (Cinemateca)....
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Race Antenna
In 1979, while Brazil was going through the troubled moment of the Amnesty Law, Glauber Rocha direct...
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Desculpa, Dona Madama
Employee exploited by her employer changes her life by winning the lottery....
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Candango: Memoirs from a Festival
In 1965, a year after the military coup in Brazil, an oasis of freedom opened in the country's capit...
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Mulher Oceano
After relocating to Tokyo, a Brazilian writer begins a new novel, provoked by her experiences in Jap...
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Ugly, Me?
Ugly, Me? is a film manifesto made from a workshop for actors called Characters in Search of a Movie...
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The Lady Who Died in the Trailer
After being born Georgina in the outback of Bahia, she became known as Diva Rios in São Paulo’s Boca...
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Inaudito
Guitarist Lanny Gordin was one of the fundamental characters in the transformation of Brazilian musi...
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Nova Pasta, Antigo Baú
A self-portrait short film by veteran Brazilian filmmaker Sylvio Lanna....
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Benjamim Zambraia e o Autopanóptico
Benjamim Zambraia is a young drunk who wanders around the city and is sometimes treated with pamperi...
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Light in Darkness: The Return of Red Light Bandit
Jorge, bastard child of the infamous Red Light Bandit, decides himself to pursuit a life of crime af...
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Belair
Between February an May of 1970, Julio Bresane and Rogerio Sganzerla made 7 films for their company ...
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Deuses da Peste
In an old, dilapidated mansion in downtown São Paulo, an old Shakespearean actor exiled from the sta...
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Fakir
The feature-length documentary Fakir portrays the success of fakirism in Brazil, Latin America and F...
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Gravidade
In an ancient family mansion, mother Sydia and daughter Nina spend a tense night of isolation just a...
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Nosferatu
Nosferatu arrives in a town escaping from Van Helsing. He brings not only his curse, but ghosts from...
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