Acting
Helena Ignez
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).
Filmography
Browse movies and TV shows featuring Helena Ignez
Eclipse
Cleo, a 43-year-old astronomer who is pregnant and emotionally fragile, is surprised by a visit from Nalu, her...
Era Preciso Voltar
The Red Light Bandit
Born and raised in the misery of Brazilian slums, Jorge becomes a luxury house burglar in São Paulo and gets ni...
Candango: Memoirs from a Festival
In 1965, a year after the military coup in Brazil, an oasis of freedom opened in the country's capital. The Bra...
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 historical chr...
Brazilian Cinema in the 20th Century
Two years of research and visits to collections, cinematheques and museums; almost seventy interviews that gene...
My Calendar Girl
A film in which dream and reality intertwine, A Moça do Calendário tells the story of inácio, 40, married, with...
A Grande Feira
The naive sailor Ron arrives in Bahia to visit the famous Água dos Meninos street market. There, however, he is...
The Sign of Chaos
A customs agent, Dr. Amnésio, examines some reels of film, a documentary Orson Welles made about Brazil, and tr...
Copacabana Mon Amour
Sônia and her homosexual brother are both believed by their mother to be possessed by the devil. She works as a...
The Woman of Everyone
Ângela Carne e Osso (Angela Meat and Bone), a young nymphomaniac, lives surrounded by delinquents, and exerts i...
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 same type...
Face to Face
The story of a civil servant who lives with his elderly mother. Falling in love with a corrupt politician's you...
Embodiment of Evil
Released from the Mental Health Wing of São Paulo State Penitentiary after forty years, the sadistic undertaker...
The Priest and the Girl
In a small town in Minas Gerais, the arrival of a young priest causes a commotion in the conservative atmospher...
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 care of Bab...
Abry
At 84 years of age, Lúcia Rocha admitted herself to a hospital in São Paulo to undergo heart tests. Upon receiv...
A Film to Remind Us of Utopia
In Esdras Baptista's film archives, kept at his home for decades, one can feel the fervor of those who believed...
Natureza Morta
The narrative takes place in 1888 and tells the story of Lenita, a young woman, raised by her father, with an e...
Baron Olavo, The Horrible
Bressane’s first color film, shot in the home of the artist Elyseu Visconti. Part of it is missing sound and fi...
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 after meeting...
Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."
Primavera nos Dentes – A História do Secos & Molhados
The series follows Secos & Molhados, the rock band that shaped music and concepts in Brazil. In exactly twelve...
Hotel Atlântico
A road movie that follows a solitary man as he sets of on a journey to the south of Brazil. The strange charact...
Memórias do Grupo Opinião
Follows the story of Opinião, a theatre group created in 1964 during the early Brazilian dictatorship period to...
Nosferatu
Nosferatu arrives in a town escaping from Van Helsing. He brings not only his curse, but ghosts from his past....
B2
A short film made with unused footage from The Red Light Bandit and Carnaval na Lama.
Gravidade
In an ancient family mansion, mother Sydia and daughter Nina spend a tense night of isolation just as a solar s...
The Good Cinema
An authentically marginal cinema created in Catholic university in Brazil. One of the most intriguing and imagi...
Flesh
Rare, medium rare, medium, medium well and well done. Through intimate and personal stories, five women share t...
No Way, Spider
Spider, a banker, lives with three women. This tycoon is a caricature of Brazil's bourgeoisie, his trajectory i...
Watch Out, Madame
Two maids decide to rebel against the society that oppresses them and start murdering their own mistresses.
Oswaldianas
Collective film with five segments around the works and life of brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade.
The Mother
A street vendor who lives in the outskirts of São Paulo returns home at night and does not find her teenager so...
A Mulher da Luz Própria
Helena Ignez is one of the main female figures of Brazilian cinema. She developed a new style of acting. Nowada...