The streets of the Brazilian city of Recife have become an open-air set thanks to 'The Secret Agent,' the film four times nominated for an Oscar that has sparked a wave of film tourism, with visits to the main points immortalized in the feature film. Feeling the cold marble of the walls of the Cine São Luiz; walking down the alley where a character stained it with blood while fleeing a gunshot wound, or savoring a drink in the same bar where hitmen ate while lying in wait for Marcelo: groups of 30 people gather at different traditional spaces in the capital of Pernambuco to feel, at least for the duration of the visit, part of the movie. For Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, from this city of about 1.5 million inhabitants in northeastern Brazil, Recife is 'another character' in the film that returned to the city its own urban memory. Two Golden Globes and four Oscar nominations opened the doors for more than 1.5 million Brazilians to flock to theaters to see the film. People from all over Brazil are checking if the tour will be available for the dates they plan to visit the capital of Pernambuco state. 'Some letters were opened, and if they contained relevant information, they were kept,' Tavares recounted. Roberto Tavares, owner of the Tavares Turismo company, is the mastermind of a four-kilometer tour that allows attendees to walk through the same corners where the police plot was conceived and where fiction merges with history, such as the Cine São Luiz, a key place for the script. The relevance abroad was seamlessly transferred to the local scene. However, for the tour guide, it is very gratifying to see residents 'show interest in their own history.' Voices are heard during the tour saying, 'I pass by here all day and didn't know this place had so much history,' Tavares related. Four hours between fiction and reality. A small venue that sells drinks based on yerba mate is the first stop of the tour, which lasts between three and four hours, and is 'where the villain Vilmar (played by Kaiony Venâncio) hides after a shootout,' recalls the guide in an interview with EFE, confessing he has seen the film 17 times. There, the owner of the family-owned local, who even appears in the film, greets tourists with a brew inspired by the cinematic piece. In front of a historic Post Office building, whose architecture seems frozen in time, the group stops to recall how, during the dictatorship, private letters were opened, a historical reality that the film faithfully portrays. '25% of the film, he says, takes place at the Ginásio Pernambucano, a school over 200 years old that opened its doors for visitors to explore its nooks and crannies, which in the fiction served as the public distribution office where Marcelo, played by Wagner Moura, worked and searched for his mother's documents. The Cine São Luiz, the star of the tour. One of the points that arouses the most curiosity among attendees is Parque 13 de Maio, where the 'hairy leg,' Recife's urban legend established during the military dictatorship, appears, which at night 'attacked' passersby. But the highlight of the tour is the white sign with red letters on the facade of the Cine São Luiz, which now opens both its public areas and its screening rooms and the apartments where technicians from other parts of the country used to stay. For all this, 'the film is very Recife,' says Tavares, and confesses he got emotional the first time he saw it, because he noticed the presence of the city 'in the speech of the people, the dialogues, the clothes, the cars, the bridges, and the music.'
