Marcelo Caetano

Creator Context

Summary

Brazilian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, and casting director whose career has developed around queer representation, working-class life, sexuality, and alternative communities. After casting Aquarius and Bacurau, he wrote and directed Corpo Elétrico, a positive, non-stereotypical portrait of a gay textile worker, and Baby, which centers gay, bisexual, and trans people, sex work, prison, migration, homelessness, and chosen family in São Paulo. He has described himself as queer or gay and repeatedly argued that sexual orientation is most meaningful when connected to race, work, education, spirituality, and other social conditions. In interviews he has criticized the Bolsonaro era, condemned the normalization of racist and homophobic discourse, discussed the defunding of LGBT cultural projects, and called for a cultural change toward greater diversity in images. His participation in queer film programming and juries, including the Queer Palm, reinforces an activist-level public and creative persona built around LGBTQ representation and resistance to conservatism.