Brazil, Daniel Fernando do Prado Dorea Lima, Diogo Jose Santos da Costa, drama, Joao Vittor Pedroza, Kites, Larissa Borges, Mariana Carvalho, movies, Phillipe Augusto da Silva Souza, reviews, Tribeca Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Walter Thompson-Hernandez
June 26, 2025
by Carla Hay
“Kites” (2025)
Directed by Walter Thompson-Hernandez
Portuguese with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the dramatic film “Kites” features a predominantly Afro-Latino group of people (with some Hispanic people) who representing the working-class.
Culture Clash: A 25-year-old man has inner conflicts about peer pressure to lead a gangster life amidst his desire to mentor young people and their interest in flying kites.
Culture Audience: “Kites” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies that take an artsy and contemplative look at life in a Brazilian favela.
“Kites” is the cinematic equivalent of a dream-like poem, where fantasies and realities collide but never crash disastrously. This drama about of an “at risk” young man and his guardian angel is more about introspection than action. Although the movie takes place in a favela in the Brazilian capital of Rio de Janeiro, the themes presented in this often-abstract movie could apply to any community where expectations are low, despair is high, and hope is in a state of flux.
Written and directed by Walter Thompson-Hernandez, “Kites” is his feature-film directorial debut. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Although “Kites” is a fictional movie, it’s filmed like a cinéma vérité-style documentary showing slices of life in this favela. Thompson-Hernandez has said in interviews that he even though he wrote the movie’s outline, the movie’s dialogue was improvised by the cast, which consists of mostly non-professional actors.
“Kites” is told mainly from the perspective of Duvô (played by Daniel Fernando do Prado Dorea Lima), a 25-year-old man who’s torn between being involved in gangster activities and having a law-abiding life. Duvô and many people in his economically depressed community find solace in flying kites. They look forward to a big kite festival, but the festival is canceled due to insufficient funds.
Duvô has a guardian angel named Phil Oladelle (played by Phillipe Augusto da Silva Souza), who talks to him and gives him advice. Phil was 29 when he died. Like like many young men in the area, Phil was killed by gun violence from police.
Gun violence looms over the area like a plague that people know about but don’t like to discuss. However, the violence is reported in the TV news clips that are shown throughout the movie. It’s not said out loud because it’s obvious: Most of this violence in Brazil is happening in favelas.
Early on in the movie, Duvô prays to God and thanks God for being alive. Duvô also asks Phil, “What is the meaning of life?” Phil replies, “I don’t need to say. I’ve always been with you.” Duvô takes it upon himself to find a way for a kite-flying event to still happen for the community, possibly as a way to redeem himself from his various law-breaking activities.
Other characters come and go throughout the story. Duvô has a girlfriend named Larissa (played by Larissa Borges), who’s having a secret affair with another young woman named Mari (played by Mariana Carvalho), who asks Larissa during one of their trysts when Larissa is going to leave Duvô. Pedroza (playe by João Vittor Pedroza) is a former colleague of Duvô’s who is now a born-again Christian street preacher.
Duvô isn’t a stereotypical hardened and macho gangster. There’s a scene where he’s talking on the phone as he’s getting a fingernail manicure in a salon and he says that male manicures aren’t just for gay men. In another scene, Duvô speaks with warm nostalgia to a a boy named Derek (played by Diogo José Santos da Costa), who’s about 12 or 13 years, about how Duvô used to fly kites with Derek’s older brother Diogo when Duvô and Derek were kids.
The “Kites” cinematography from Michael Fernandez and the movie’s wistful neoclassical music score from Malcolm Parson are both excellent. The scenes with angels are filmed using backdrops painted to look like skies and make the angels look museum art exhibits but also living beings. “Kites” doesn’t have much of a plot, but succeeds at conveying moods and showing the various contrasts of life in a culture that is often neglected by more privileged societies.