Helena Ignez

Acting

Helena Ignez

Born May 23, 1939 · Salvador, Bahia, Brazil (age 87)

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 y…

Known For

The Red Light BanditThe Red Light Bandit · 1968
The Red Light Bandit
★ 7.61968
MovieThrillerCrime
Born and raised in the misery of Brazilian slums, Jorge becomes a luxury house burglar in São Paulo and gets nicknamed "The Red Light Bandit" by the sensationalist press. In addition to wearing a red flashlight, he talks to his hostages in an irreverent tone and makes bold breakthroughs to later spend the money extravagantly. His world is the decadent neighbourhood of Boca do Lixo.
NosferatuNosferatu · 2025
Nosferatu
★ 1.02025
MovieHorrorDrama
Nosferatu arrives in a town escaping from Van Helsing. He brings not only his curse, but ghosts from his past. In this escape, he dives into a macabre dance searching for an actress and faces the horror of eternity and the pain of an endless existence.
InauditooInauditoo · 2017
Inauditoo
★ 6.22017
MovieDocumentary
Guitarist Lanny Gordin was one of the fundamental characters in the transformation of Brazilian music from the 1960s onwards. He electrified Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Jards Macalé, among others. Lanny reveals his libertarian process of composition and current thinking, embarking on an unusual odyssey through China, his birthplace, and Brazil, the country where he lives.
Lost MediaLost Media
Lost Media
MovieComedy
SubterrâneaSubterrânea · 2021
Subterrânea
2021
MovieAdventureFantasy
An experimental trip about Brazil after H.O.
EclipseEclipse · 2026
Eclipse
2026
MovieThrillerDrama
Cleo, a 43-year-old astronomer who is pregnant and emotionally fragile, is surprised by a visit from Nalu, her half-sister of Indigenous descent. The encounter reveals dark secrets and stirs up fragmented memories in Cleo, leading the two of them down a path of mysterious investigations.
Ralé: The Lower DepthsRalé: The Lower Depths · 2016
Ralé: The Lower Depths
★ 5.42016
MovieDrama
Young directors are filming “The Exhibitionist” in the middle of a farm in a paradise-like region. The film poetically investigates the Brazilian soul, with the Amazon as the center of the world, reflecting on existential issues, the right to sexual freedom and individuality.
Embodiment of EvilEmbodiment of Evil · 2008
Embodiment of Evil
★ 5.32008
MovieHorrorThriller
Released from the Mental Health Wing of São Paulo State Penitentiary after forty years, the sadistic undertaker Zé do Caixão is back on the streets, haunted by ghostly visions and spirits of past victims but still set upon the goal that sent him to prison in the first place: finding a woman who can give him the perfect child.

Filmography

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Ugly, Me?Ugly, Me? · 2013
Ugly, Me?
★ 5.02013
MovieDocumentaryDrama
Ugly, Me? is a film manifesto made from a workshop for actors called Characters in Search of a Movie, in 'La pa', 'Rio De Janeiro', extended to Paris and 'Kerala' (India). Multifaceted like a kaleidoscope, the characters appear in multi-screens scenes and sequences. The images were captured with different kinds of cameras and Ugly, Me? uses this sign of the variety imposed by independent production as language experimentation. Transposing the boundaries of style, Ugly, Me? navigates in a sea of metaphors, philosophical and musical politics, from Prince Harry to Heraclitus, going through a series of authors like Rimbaud, Brecht, Nietzsche, Bispo do Rosario and Eduardo Viveiros DE Castro, capturing a contradictory and original country.

Director

Baron Olavo, The HorribleBaron Olavo, The Horrible · 1970
Baron Olavo, The Horrible
★ 6.01970
MovieComedyCrime
Bressane’s first color film, shot in the home of the artist Elyseu Visconti. Part of it is missing sound and final editing because the director was forced to leave Brazil. Horror and humor to deal with the subject of insanity: “In the end everyone leaves the house as though they were laboratory mice escaping, they invade the city and contaminate the world”. “If we talk about horror, this film deals with national horror, with Mojica Marins as an emblem. There might be a few touches of Corman and English horror, but it is another level of horror. What transformed the film was the location where we were shooting, the house of a 19th century painter, a receptacle of light. When I arrived and saw that house, that light, I said: ‘This is the film. This is the horror’. The meaning of the film, its appeal, derives from this laboratory of light” (J. Bressane). — Torino Film Festival

Isabel

Tereza BatistaTereza Batista · 1992
Tereza Batista
★ 8.51992
SeriesDrama
The miniseries is an adaptation of the novel Tereza Batista Cansada de Guerra, by Jorge Amado. Born in the city of Cajazeiras, Tereza Batista, still a child, is sold by her aunt Felipa to the feared captain Justo. Collector of girls, the captain finds in Tereza someone who is not intimidated, even when she is mistreated. In her warehouse, she meets the student Daniel with whom she falls in love and surrenders. Caught in the act, Tereza kills the captain and is arrested. She achieves her freedom thanks to the intervention of lawyer Lulu dos Santos and begins to be courted by Colonel Emiliano. At this stage, she knows tranquility and security. But the colonel dies and she has to go to the house of Veneranda, the local pimp. All this misfortune happens while Tereza waits for the time to realize her big dream: to live alongside the fisherman Jereba, who disappeared from her life. Close to marrying Almério, a good man and settled in life, she meets Jereba, her true love.

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