Juliano Dornelles

Creator Context

Summary

Juliano Dornelles is a Brazilian director, screenwriter and production designer from Recife who built his career in Pernambuco cinema, working on films including Neighbouring Sounds, Aquarius, Permanência and Good Luck, Sweetheart before directing shorts and co-directing Bacurau. His creative work repeatedly focuses on class power, regional marginalization, authoritarianism, foreign intervention and resistance, with attention to Brazilian cultural identity and queer representation. Dornelles has publicly criticized Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right government and its treatment of culture, described the administration as threatening Brazilian cinema, and spoken openly about his family’s history of communist resistance to Brazil’s military dictatorship. This combination of politically charged filmmaking and an explicit anti-authoritarian public stance supports an activist-level score, although his record is primarily that of a politically engaged filmmaker rather than a full-time campaigner.