Neighboring Sounds offers a glimpse into the world of the upper middle class in the town of Recife, Brazil in director Kleber Mendonca Filho’s narrative feature debut. Part drama and part thriller, the sleepy town on the coast of Brazil is awoken to a series of petty crimes, which results in a security team being stationed on the city streets 24/7. While the guards do their best to reassure the town’s sense of safety, their overly aggressive actions cause the residents to suffer anxiety and fear. It’s an interesting film, spoken in Portuguese with English subtitles, which is sure to leave audiences in awe of its realism and visually suspenseful cinematography.

For Kleber, Neighboring Sounds is a special film for many reasons, one being the simple fact that this is his narrative debut. His journey towards being a director is quite unique, he entered the film world as a journalist, “I started to write as a journalist and then as a film critic,” he says. “Two years ago I stopped writing as a critic because I just couldn’t do it anymore, it got to be too much, and I had to make this film… I quit to make this film, and, of course, I miss it, but I’m very happy that I quit also because it’s like getting rid of one gigabyte in your hard drive. I was—you know, a normal week I could write two reviews or maybe five. The exercise of going to the films and coming back and having to write—I was already thinking of making this film—it was just too much. And I quit. Now, I’m working for my film, and my films.”

It’s an interesting film… which is sure to leave audiences in awe of its realism and visually suspenseful cinematography.

Being a critic for over 14 years definitely helped shape Kleber’s style as a filmmaker, citing cinema of the 1970’s as inspiration. He was able to see what he liked and did not like and express why he felt that way through his writing. This is how, ultimately, he was able to make a film with little actual filmmaking experience.

Every scene is a vignette, which weaves through the entire film. The film is literally broken into three chapters but the decision to keep a cohesive storyline, instead of one individual story per chapter, is the right choice for this film. Every character’s story that is played throughout the film has time to develop; it is not subject to start and end within a specific “chapter.” In fact, Kleber’s final run time is just over 2 hours and even then, he feels two hours isn’t enough time to delve deep into the characters. It’s a film where nothing can happen, but at the same time, everything happens.

Neighboring Sounds was released in theaters in 2012 and on DVD on May of this year and has been selected as the Brazilian entry in the Oscar foreign film race. It is an impressive first film by Kleber whose name will definitely be heard in the years to come.