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).
| Known For | Acting |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 0.1825 |
| Birthday | 1939-05-23 |
| Place of Birth | Salvador, Bahia, Brazil |
| Also Known As | Helena Ignês, Helena Inês, Helena Inez, |
2005
Luz-Lux-Lúcia
0/0
A documentary short on Glauber Rocha's mother Lúcia.
Watch Now
Luz-Lux-Lúcia
2023
Joy Is the Acid Test
0/0
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 d...
Watch Now
Joy Is the Acid Test
2021
The Good Cinema
0/0
An authentically marginal cinema created in Catholic university in Brazil. One of the most intriguing and imaginative moments in modern cinema in the...
Watch Now
The Good Cinema
2008
Embodiment of Evil
5.256/43
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, h...
Watch Now
Embodiment of Evil
1997
Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional
0/0
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."
Watch Now
Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional
2022
The Mother
8.2/2
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 ou...
Watch Now
The Mother
1959
O Pátio
6.731/13
A man and a woman are laying on a chess-like patio. Both are trying to reach each other in the best way they can. However, for some odd reason they do...
Watch Now
O Pátio
2023
O Mel é Mais Doce Que o Sangue
6/1
Watch Now
O Mel é Mais Doce Que o Sangue
1966
The Priest and the Girl
6.955/33
In a small town in Minas Gerais, the arrival of a young priest causes a commotion in the conservative atmosphere of the place, aggravated by the sudde...
Watch Now
The Priest and the Girl
1970
The Hullabaloo Family
6.25/4
A dysfunctional family, composed of a prostitute and two gay men, one strong and the other fragile and stupid, lives a routine life in Rio de Janeiro....
Watch Now
The Hullabaloo Family
1969
The Woman of Everyone
7.806/18
Ângela Carne e Osso (Angela Meat and Bone), a young nymphomaniac, lives surrounded by delinquents, and exerts intense allure on them, dominating them...
Watch Now
The Woman of Everyone
1970
Copacabana Mon Amour
7.184/19
Sônia and her homosexual brother are both believed by their mother to be possessed by the devil. She works as a prostitute in the streets of Copacaban...
Watch Now
Copacabana Mon Amour
2003
The Sign of Chaos
7.154/13
A customs agent, Dr. Amnésio, examines some reels of film, a documentary Orson Welles made about Brazil, and tries to confiscate the material. Then, a...
Watch Now
The Sign of Chaos
1971
Memoirs of a Strangler of Blondes
7.5/10
First film by Julio Bressane shot in exile, "Memoirs" is a film about a man who repeatedly kills the same type of woman in same places, the same way....
Watch Now
Memoirs of a Strangler of Blondes
1961
A Grande Feira
8.444/9
The naive sailor Ron arrives in Bahia to visit the famous Água dos Meninos street market. There, however, he is passed behind by the prostitute Maria,...
Watch Now
A Grande Feira
1986
It's Not All True
6.857/7
Orson Welles goes to Brazil to shoot his documentary It's All True.
Watch Now
It's Not All True
2012
A Balada do Provisório
2.3/3
Two days in the life of André Provisório, a man with many occupations: private detective, drug dealer, and incorrigible seducer. Between his activitie...
Watch Now
A Balada do Provisório
1970
No Way, Spider
6/15
Spider, a banker, lives with three women. This tycoon is a caricature of Brazil's bourgeoisie, his trajectory is the starting point for an essay on th...
Watch Now
No Way, Spider
2009
Hotel Atlântico
7.1/12
A road movie that follows a solitary man as he sets of on a journey to the south of Brazil. The strange characters and absurd situations he encounters...
Watch Now
Hotel Atlântico
2023
Helena de Guaratiba
0/0
Hated by the Greeks, detested by the Trojans, Helena lives a peaceful life in Guaratiba, a fishing neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. Until love knocks o...
Watch Now
Helena de Guaratiba
1969
Baron Olavo, The Horrible
6.143/7
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 fo...
Watch Now
Baron Olavo, The Horrible
1967
Face to Face
5.5/12
The story of a civil servant who lives with his elderly mother. Falling in love with a corrupt politician's young and rich daughter, he abandons himse...
Watch Now
Face to Face
2007
Meu Mundo em Perigo
5.7/3
Elias sees his world threatened when his ex-wife, one recovering junkie, asks for the guard of their son. Fito is in desperation for losing his father...
Watch Now
Meu Mundo em Perigo
1970
Watch Out, Madame
6.286/7
Two maids decide to rebel against the society that oppresses them and start murdering their own mistresses.
Watch Now
Watch Out, Madame
1962
Assault on the Pay Train
7.967/30
Based on true events in Rio de Janeiro, in 1960, when a gang having the infamous outlaw Tião Medonho as a leader performed a sensational railroad hold...
Watch Now
Assault on the Pay Train
2025
Not Even God Is As Fair As Your Jeans
9.7/3
Close to turning forty and away from his job as a librarian due to depression, Marcos needs to take care of Baby, his sister's pet dog. Isolated in an...
Watch Now
Not Even God Is As Fair As Your Jeans
2014
The End of an Age
7.5/4
They live, they act, they love. Today they remember, they relive, they live through cinema and life.
Watch Now
The End of an Age
2014
Paixão e Virtude
4.2/7
Watch Now
Paixão e Virtude
2003
Glauber Rocha - The Movie, Brazil's Labyrinth
6.278/9
Documentary about Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha, one of the most important names in the Cinema Novo, with interviews with some of his friends and...
Watch Now
Glauber Rocha - The Movie, Brazil's Labyrinth
2014
Love Film Festival
7.5/4
Filmed over six years in four countries: Portugal, Brazil, Colombia and United States, this romantic drama tells the story of Luzia, a Brazilian scree...
Watch Now
Love Film Festival
2001
B2
6/1
A short film made with unused footage from The Red Light Bandit and Carnaval na Lama.
Watch Now
B2
1967
O Engano
9/1
The relationship of a woman with three men - her husband, her lover and a man who fell in love with her -, told in a single night, through flashbacks
Watch Now
O Engano
1968
The Red Light Bandit
7.6/69
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 s...
Watch Now
The Red Light Bandit
1992
Oswaldianas
9/1
Collective film with five segments around the works and life of brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade.
Watch Now
Oswaldianas
1986
Spray Jet
9/1
Three artists from São Paulo - Leda Catunda, Leonilson and Ciro Cozzolino - talk about their work and the rebirth of painting through pop, conceptual...
Watch Now
Spray Jet
1964
Grito da Terra
9/1
In rural Brazil, villagers battle wealthy land barons for the sake of their own survival.
Watch Now
Grito da Terra
2020
Rio de Topless
0/0
Topless muse in Rio de Janeiro, Ana Paula Nogueira uses the ban on bare breasts and her story to debate freedom and feminism in the city that exported...
Watch Now
Rio de Topless
2024
A Última Vanguarda
0/0
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 a...
Watch Now
A Última Vanguarda
1992
Scent of Gardenias
6.6/5
Daniel is a taxi driver who’s married to Adalgisa. When she starts acting in low-budget movies, he forbids her from seeing their son, Joaquim. For mor...
Watch Now
Scent of Gardenias
2019
Memórias do Grupo Opinião
0/0
Follows the story of Opinião, a theatre group created in 1964 during the early Brazilian dictatorship period to oppose the government through artistic...
Watch Now
Memórias do Grupo Opinião
2023
Nelson Carneiro: Knight of Democracy
0/0
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 acros...
Watch Now
Nelson Carneiro: Knight of Democracy
1999
São Jerônimo
7/5
Brazilian director Julio Bressane directs this religious biography on the life and work of Saint Jerome, the monk who first translated the Bible into...
Watch Now
São Jerônimo
2004
Retrato da Terra
0/0
Watch Now
Retrato da Terra
1970
Carnaval na Lama
8/1
Rogério Sganzerla’s lost film. The only existing copy was lost in 1992 and the negatives are lost. It tells about the history of Betty Bomba, an exhib...
Watch Now
Carnaval na Lama
1968
The Outsiders
9/1
Guilherme, who has the police on his trail for having been involved with a niece of the mayor of his city, runs away with the girl after receiving thr...
Watch Now
The Outsiders
2024
If I'm Here It Is by Mystery
0/0
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...
Watch Now
If I'm Here It Is by Mystery
2003
Abry
10/1
At 84 years of age, Lúcia Rocha admitted herself to a hospital in São Paulo to undergo heart tests. Upon receiving the news about the risk to her life...
Watch Now
Abry
2023
The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus
9/4
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 backwar...
Watch Now
The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus
2016
Ralé: The Lower Depths
5.4/5
Young directors are filming “The Exhibitionist” in the middle of a farm in a paradise-like region. The film poetically investigates the Brazilian soul...
Watch Now
Ralé: The Lower Depths
2013
Sinais de Cinza, A Peleja de Olney Contra o Dragão da Maldade
8/1
Watch Now
Sinais de Cinza, A Peleja de Olney Contra o Dragão da Maldade
2006
Helena Zero
0/0
Watch Now
Helena Zero
2012
Mr. Sganzerla: Os Signos da Luz
3.5/1
A documentary on prolific underground Brazilian filmmaker Rogério Sganzerla.
Watch Now
Mr. Sganzerla: Os Signos da Luz
2005
A Miss e o Dinossauro
5/3
A short documentary on Belair, an independent Brazilian film company that lasted for only five months in 1970.
Watch Now
A Miss e o Dinossauro
1974
A Man and His Cage
5.8/5
The painter Tino, in professional and political crisis, receives a telegram from his mother-in-law, Selma, announcing her return from Europe. After hi...
Watch Now
A Man and His Cage
2016
O Cinema Foi à Feira
0/0
Watch Now
O Cinema Foi à Feira
1990
Anônimo e incomum
6/1
Watch Now
Anônimo e incomum
2010
Avacalha e se Esculhamba
0/0
Watch Now
Avacalha e se Esculhamba
2017
Febre
10/1
Marcos returns home after a few years away.
Watch Now
Febre
2018
Antes do Fim
5.5/1
Jean feels trapped in the logic of longevity that the pharmaceutical industry imposes on him and decides to plan a conscious suicide. He invites Helen...
Watch Now
Antes do Fim
2018
My Calendar Girl
2/4
A film in which dream and reality intertwine, A Moça do Calendário tells the story of inácio, 40, married, without a permanent job. Ex-street sweeper,...
Watch Now
My Calendar Girl
2017
All Paulos in the World - Paulo José
7.4/5
"All Paulos in the World" is a cinematographic essay about Paulo José, one of the greatest artists in Brazil, in the year in which he turns 80 years-o...
Watch Now
All Paulos in the World - Paulo José
1970
The Monsters of Babaloo
6.9/10
Daily scenes of a grotesque family living in the metaphorical island of Babaloo.
Watch Now
The Monsters of Babaloo
1978
Mulheres de Cinema
10/2
Documentary on famous Brazilian actresses, female directors and the role of women in Brazilian film history.
Watch Now
Mulheres de Cinema
1994
Flying Geraldo
0/0
A fantastic tale in the brutal reality of a slum. The life of a boy with the rare gift of flying. Based on a Will Eisner's story
Watch Now
Flying Geraldo
2017
Venus – Filly the Lesbian Little Fairy
3/1
In this animated fairy-tale Filly, a lesbian fairy with nimble fingers, seduces women by day dressed as a boy. But at night something strange happens...
Watch Now
Venus – Filly the Lesbian Little Fairy
2013
Terno
0/0
One day away of Marcelo's wedding, the tailor, the groom and his father will have to correct much more than the suit's measures.
Watch Now
Terno
2014
Copacabana, Mon Amour: A Restauração
0/0
A documentary on the restoration of Rogério Sganzerla's 1970 film "Copacabana, Mon Amour".
Watch Now
Copacabana, Mon Amour: A Restauração
2019
A Mulher da Luz Própria
8/1
Helena Ignez is one of the main female figures of Brazilian cinema. She developed a new style of acting. Nowadays, she directs independent films. The...
Watch Now
A Mulher da Luz Própria
2019
Flesh
7.2/9
Rare, medium rare, medium, medium well and well done. Through intimate and personal stories, five women share their experiences in relation to the bod...
Watch Now
Flesh
2009
A Vermelha Luz do Bandido
0/0
Experimental documentary short that debates over Rogério Sganzerla's Brazilian cult classic "The Red Light Bandit".
Watch Now
A Vermelha Luz do Bandido
2022
The Welles Raft
0/0
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...
Watch Now
The Welles Raft
2019
Extracts
0/0
Extracts is a short film with images from 1970 to 1972 in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, London, Marrakech, Rabat and the Sahara Desert regio...
Watch Now
Extracts
2014
Estátua!
6/2
Isabel is a babysitter pregnant of her own child and can't wait to be a mother. Until she meets Joana.
Watch Now
Estátua!
2018
O Desmonte do Monte
5/1
Morro do Castelo was chosen by the Portuguese to found Rio de Janeiro city. It was an important historical and architectural reference. Despite its re...
Watch Now
O Desmonte do Monte
2020
Ensaio Sobre o Fracasso
8/1
A projectionist at a porn cinema in downtown São Paulo, makes his first film in Super8, an essay about the failure of a lifetime. The scenes from the...
Watch Now
Ensaio Sobre o Fracasso
2020
Natureza Morta
2/2
The narrative takes place in 1888 and tells the story of Lenita, a young woman, raised by her father, with an educated background, who disregards the...
Watch Now
Natureza Morta
2014
Ossos
2.3/3
Watch Now
Ossos
2013
Poder dos Afetos
0/0
A study that unwraps a paradisiac scenery, reaching the subjects of Brazility and its force in the change of habits, breaking taboos and bringing out...
Watch Now
Poder dos Afetos
2003
Reinvenção da Rua
0/0
Helena Ignez's first film as a director is a homage to American architect and contemporary artist Vito Acconti, who made an urban intervention over a...
Watch Now
Reinvenção da Rua
2019
Bring me the Head of Carmen M.
8/1
Ana, a Portuguese actress, dives into Brazil's current atmosphere of identity and political crisis while trying to portray in a feature film the colou...
Watch Now
Bring me the Head of Carmen M.
2008
A Bela P...
0/0
The human body in 5 parts.
Watch Now
A Bela P...
2020
Esse fim de semana vou me dedicar as paredes
0/0
A person locked in the room.
Watch Now
Esse fim de semana vou me dedicar as paredes
2020
Fogo Baixo, Alto Astral
0/0
Short film by Helena Ignez, for the "Programa Convida", from IMS, dedicated to creation during quarantine.
Watch Now
Fogo Baixo, Alto Astral
1992
Perigo Negro
7/2
Loosely based on an Oswald de Andrade screenplay, "Perigo Negro" is a segment of anthology film "Oswaldianas" which deals with a uprising soccer playe...
Watch Now
Perigo Negro
2017
Brazilian Cinema in the 20th Century
0/0
Two years of research and visits to collections, cinematheques and museums; almost seventy interviews that generated 30 hours of recorded material; mo...
Watch Now
Brazilian Cinema in the 20th Century
2019
In Memoriam: O Roteiro do Gravador
0/0
Experimental movie about Rio de Janeiro's Museum of Modern Art's Movie Archive (Cinemateca).
Watch Now
In Memoriam: O Roteiro do Gravador
2020
Race Antenna
8.2/2
In 1979, while Brazil was going through the troubled moment of the Amnesty Law, Glauber Rocha directed the program Abertura for TV Tupi, in which he i...
Watch Now
Race Antenna
2013
Desculpa, Dona Madama
0/0
Employee exploited by her employer changes her life by winning the lottery.
Watch Now
Desculpa, Dona Madama
2020
Candango: Memoirs from a Festival
5/1
In 1965, a year after the military coup in Brazil, an oasis of freedom opened in the country's capital. The Brasília Film Festival: a landmark of cult...
Watch Now
Candango: Memoirs from a Festival
2020
Mulher Oceano
4/3
After relocating to Tokyo, a Brazilian writer begins a new novel, provoked by her experiences in Japan and by one of the last scenes she witnessed in...
Watch Now
Mulher Oceano
2013
Ugly, Me?
5/1
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...
Watch Now
Ugly, Me?
2021
Subterrânea
0/0
An experimental trip about Brazil after H.O.
Watch Now
Subterrânea
2020
The Lady Who Died in the Trailer
6/1
After being born Georgina in the outback of Bahia, she became known as Diva Rios in São Paulo’s Boca do Lixo and Rio de Janeiro’s Lapa, as well as Suz...
Watch Now
The Lady Who Died in the Trailer
2017
Inaudito
6.2/2
Guitarist Lanny Gordin was one of the fundamental characters in the transformation of Brazilian music from the 1960s onwards. He electrified Gal Costa...
Watch Now
Inaudito
2021
Um Documentário Brasileiro
0/0
Watch Now
Um Documentário Brasileiro
2021
Nova Pasta, Antigo Baú
0/0
A self-portrait short film by veteran Brazilian filmmaker Sylvio Lanna.
Watch Now
Nova Pasta, Antigo Baú
2020
Benjamim Zambraia e o Autopanóptico
0/0
Benjamim Zambraia is a young drunk who wanders around the city and is sometimes treated with pampering and sometimes with a beating by his parents (He...
Watch Now
Benjamim Zambraia e o Autopanóptico
2012
Light in Darkness: The Return of Red Light Bandit
5.2/6
Jorge, bastard child of the infamous Red Light Bandit, decides himself to pursuit a life of crime after meeting with his father, who has been incarcer...
Watch Now
Light in Darkness: The Return of Red Light Bandit
1973
Um Intruso no Paraíso
7/1
Watch Now
Um Intruso no Paraíso
2009
Belair
0/0
Between February an May of 1970, Julio Bresane and Rogerio Sganzerla made 7 films for their company Belair that were forbidden by the Brazilian censor...
Watch Now
Belair
Flesh
0/0
Watch Now
Flesh
2025
Trópico de Leão
0/0
Watch Now
Trópico de Leão
2025
Deuses da Peste
0/0
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 b...
Watch Now
Deuses da Peste
2019
Fakir
0/0
The feature-length documentary Fakir portrays the success of fakirism in Brazil, Latin America and France. This circus art origin show is presented an...
Watch Now
Fakir
2025
Gravidade
0/0
In an ancient family mansion, mother Sydia and daughter Nina spend a tense night of isolation just as a solar storm threatens to collapse the Earth’s...
Watch Now
Gravidade
2025
Message from Sergipe
0/0
An old man is tired of celebrating his birthday.
Watch Now
Message from Sergipe
2026
Eclipse
0/0
Watch Now
Eclipse
2025
Nosferatu
0/0
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...
Watch Now
Nosferatu
Lost Media
0/0
Watch Now
Lost Media
A Film to Remind Us of Utopia
0/0
In Esdras Baptista's film archives, kept at his home for decades, one can feel the fervor of those who believed in a new tomorrow. Filmed in Brazil in...
Watch Now