Helena Ignez

Overview

Known for
Acting
Gender
Other
Birthday
May 23, 1939 (86 years old)

Helena Ignez

Known For

Deuses da Peste
2h 10m
Movie 2025

Deuses da Peste

In an old, dilapidated mansion in downtown São Paulo, an old Shakespearean actor exiled from the stage lives with his ghosts. In his bed, surrounded by red curtains taken from an abandoned theater, he dreams of the plague and fire spreading throughout the country. A strange community forms around the old actor.

A Última Vanguarda
1h 41m
Movie 2024

A Última Vanguarda

70 years ago, a visionary management in education and culture as a political strategy for the dissemination and development of Bahia gave rise to an artistic vanguard that still impacts Brazilian culture today.

If I'm Here It Is by Mystery
0h 22m
Movie 2024

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 special powers. Renowned witch Dahlia is determined to beat the Order and assembles a clan of trans and queer people, each with their own supernatural talent. The fate of the city is in their hands.

Nelson Carneiro: Knight of Democracy
1h 10m
Movie 2023

Nelson Carneiro: Knight of Democracy

In 2018, Brazil’s 1988 Constitution turned thirty. Known as the Citizen Constitution, it was a landmark in the history of Brazil, the outcome of across-the-board engagement of society in its preparation. In Congress, the parliamentarians best known for their involvement in this initiative were names that are still familiar today in Brazil’s political history: Ulysses Guimarães, Teotônio Vilela, Tancredo Neves and Nelson Carneiro.

O Mel é Mais Doce Que o Sangue
1h 11m
Movie 2023

O Mel é Mais Doce Que o Sangue

The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus
7h 12m
Movie 2023

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 chronology but soon starts to move backwards and forward. The various pasts – the 60s, the 80s, the 2000s – comment on each other in a way that sheds light on Bressane’s themes and obsessions, which become increasingly apparent and finally, a whole idea of cinema reveals itself to the curious and patient viewer. Will Bressane, from now on, rework The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus when he makes another film? Is this his latest beginning? Why not, for the eternally young master maverick seems to embark on a maiden voyage with each and every new film!

Joy Is the Acid Test
1h 41m
Movie 2023

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 artist, sexologist, and octogenarian rocker, as she defines herself, and Lírio Terron, a human rights activist. In fact, a journey that is not over in their lives. Jarda Icon teaches classes on how women can obtain their own orgasm. With her group of disciples and friends Ana Brasil, Sheyla Fernanda, Caroline Sylvie and Lakshmi she develops self-sustainable feminist and artistic projects. The film is political, but not at all politicized in the traditional sense. It is an ode to the underground and counterculture movements, it is a hymn to freedom, and its title is also a tribute to Oswald d Andrade, one of the main names in Brazilian modernism.

The Mother
1h 20m
Movie 2022

The Mother

A street vendor who lives in the outskirts of São Paulo returns home at night and does not find her teenager son. After a nonstop search, she finds out the boy was killed by the police and his body is missing. This is the beginning of this woman’s vertiginous fight for the right to bury her son, a fight that will not only unveil the excessive violence of one of most lethal police forces of the world, but also how structural is racism in Brazilian society.

The Welles Raft
1h 15m
Movie 2022

The Welles Raft

The raft man Manuel Jacaré was swallowed by the sea when Orson Welles was filming It's All True in 1942. The fact evokes memories of the dictatorship of the Estado Novo, of World War II, of Ceará fishermen's struggle for labor rights and housing in their traditional space - target of real estate speculation.

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).

Acting

2025
Deuses da Peste
2024
A Última Vanguarda
2024
If I'm Here It Is by Mystery
2023
Nelson Carneiro: Knight of Democracy
2023
Helena de Guaratiba
2023
O Mel é Mais Doce Que o Sangue
2023
The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus
2023
Joy Is the Acid Test
2022
The Mother
2022
The Welles Raft
2021
The Good Cinema
2021
Subterrânea
2020
Benjamim Zambraia e o Autopanóptico
2020
Candango: Memoirs from a Festival
2020
Mulher Oceano
2020
Race Antenna
2020
The Lady Who Died in the Trailer
2020
Esse fim de semana vou me dedicar as paredes
2020
Ensaio Sobre o Fracasso
2020
Natureza Morta
2020
Rio de Topless
2019
Extracts
2019
Flesh
2019
Fakir
2019
In Memoriam: O Roteiro do Gravador
2019
A Mulher da Luz Própria
2019
Memórias do Grupo Opinião
2019
Bring me the Head of Carmen M.
2018
My Calendar Girl
2018
O Desmonte do Monte
2018
Antes do Fim
2017
Inaudito
2017
All Paulos in the World - Paulo José
2017
Febre
2017
Brazilian Cinema in the 20th Century
2017
Venus – Filly the Lesbian Little Fairy
2016
O Cinema Foi à Feira
2016
Ralé: The Lower Depths
2014
Love Film Festival
2014
The End of an Age
2014
Estátua!
2014
Paixão e Virtude
2014
Copacabana, Mon Amour: A Restauração
2014
Ossos
2013
Desculpa, Dona Madama
2013
Ugly, Me?
2013
Poder dos Afetos
2013
Terno
2013
Sinais de Cinza, A Peleja de Olney Contra o Dragão da Maldade
2012
A Balada do Provisório
2012
Mr. Sganzerla: Os Signos da Luz
2010
Avacalha e se Esculhamba
2009
A Vermelha Luz do Bandido
2008
A Bela P...
1997
Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional
1994
Flying Geraldo
1992
Scent of Gardenias
1992
Tereza Batista
1992
Oswaldianas
1992
Perigo Negro
1990
Anônimo e incomum
1986
Spray Jet

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