Leila Diniz
Birthday: Born in 1945-03-25 in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Deathday: 1972-06-14
Leila Roque Diniz (25 March 1945 – 14 June 1972) was a Brazilian television, movie and theatre actress, whose liberal ideas and attitudes about sex had raised the discontent of both the feminists and the Brazilian military government of the 1960s. Born in a middle-class family and the daughter of a communist activist, Leila worked as a kindergarten teacher at age 15. At age 17, she met movie director Domingos de Oliveira, with whom she lived until age 21. Between 1962 and 1964 she had minor roles on stage. In 1965, Diniz started working in television, where she made several telenovelas and various commercials. In 1967, she also started to make movies. She died on 14 June 1972, aged 27, at the peak of fame, coming back from a movie festival in Australia, where she won a Best Actress award for the movie Mãos Vazias ("Empty Hands"), in the Japan Airlines Flight 471 crash in India.
TV Credits
Anastácia, a Mulher sem Destino
Character: Anastácia / Henriette / Rose
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Ilusões Perdidas
Character:
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Paixão de Outono
Character: Maria Luísa
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A Menina do Veleiro Azul
Character: Ester
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Dez Vidas
Character: Pompom (2ª versão)
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Eu Compro Essa Mulher
Character: Úrsula
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E Nós, Aonde Vamos?
Character: Sônia Monteiro
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A Rainha Louca
Character: Lorenza
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Vidas em Conflito
Character: Débora
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Um Rosto de Mulher
Character: Laura
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O Sheik de Agadir
Character: Madelon
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Movie Credits
A Public Opinion
Character:
Documentary about middle-class people in Rio de Janeiro, in the 1960s, when Brazil was going through a hard period in its history, with the military coup and the following dictatorship. Interviews with people in the street disclose their fears, aspirations and political alienation....
Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional
Character: Self
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."...
The Naked Man
Character: Mariana
A man gets locked naked outside of his apartment....
Love, Carnival and Dreams
Character: Pirata
On Carnival's eve, girl dreams of a man to stay with her during these four days. She meets a photographer, with whom she has an affair....
All the Women in the World
Character: Maria Alice
When womanizer Paulo meets a friend’s fiancée, she changes the way he looks at the opposite sex. He falls in love, and believes she is in fact all women in one. Because of that, he has to face an important decision: to go on with his old life, or embrace this special relationship and become a monogamous man....
Edu, Coração de Ouro
Character: Tatiana
A volatile young man, Edu is a typical Rio de Janeiro middle-class kind, who flirts with multiple women at the same time. None of them, however, had managed to make him fall in love, until he met with mysterious Tatiana....
Mãos Vazias
Character: Ida
In a small town in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, a woman rebels against local morality after her child dies, with tragic results....
Corisco, o Diabo Loiro
Character: Dadá
After killing a troublemaker, Cristino flees to a town in the Northeast and is forced to join Lampião's gang, where he becomes his right-hand man, under the name Corisco, the Blond Devil. He falls in love with Dadá, a farmer's daughter, and takes her with him by force. Gradually, she learns to love him, and they live together for 13 years in the cangaço. Corisco escapes the Angico massacre but is captured by Lieutenant Zé Rufino's volante after beheading the family of Lampião's informant. Dadá a...
Leila Para Sempre Diniz
Character: Self (archive footage)
A documentary that presents home movies and several excerpts of known films of famous actress Leila Diniz. Friends of the late actress, tragic killed on a plane crash in 1972, discuss about her life, her work and her legacy in Brazilian culture....
O Donzelo
Character: Leila
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Improvised and Purposeful: Cinema Novo
Character: Self (archive footage)
Originally produced for German TV, Improvised and Purposeful is a firsthand look at the "Cinema Novo" movement (otherwise known as the 'Brazilian New Wave'). Director Joaquim Pedro de Andrade focuses on six Cinema Novo filmmakers working in Rio in 1967....
Domingos
Character: (archive footage)
A look into the life and mind of Brazilian playwright and filmmaker Domingos Oliveira through his daily activities and artistic deeds....
A Madona de Cedro
Character: Marta
Delfino, a quiet man who lives in Congonhas do Campo, a small historical town in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, is urged by his friend to steal the image of the Madona de Cedro (the Cedar Madonna), sculpted by Aleijadinho in the 18th century, from the town sanctuary....
Mineirinho, Vivo ou Morto
Character:
Based on real-life Brazilian bandit "Mineirinho", the film follows the story of Zezé, a man falsely accused by sensasionalist press of being a high-caliber criminal who suddenly becomes one of the most wanted men of Rio de Janeiro....
The Alienist
Character: Eudóxia
Father Simão Bacamarte arrives in the small town of Serafim to investigate a certain phenomenon of madness....
Os Paqueras
Character: Ela mesma
Two ladykillers living in Rio de Janeiro know no limits when courting a beautiful woman. A problem arises when one of them starts coming on to a girl, not knowing she's his buddy's daughter....
Hunger for Love
Character: Ulla
An extended research tour of US university film programs introduced dos Santos to the American avant-garde filmmakers, among them Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, who would directly inspire his formally radical adaptation of an allegorical short story about adultery and colonialism by Guilherme de Figueiredo. Filmed in both Manhattan and Brazil and set against the background of the Vietnam War and its protests, Hunger for Love uses a rigorously abstract soundtrack and narrative structure to evoke ...
O Mundo Alegre de Helô
Character:
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Mulheres de Cinema
Character: Self (archive footage)
Documentary on famous Brazilian actresses, female directors and the role of women in Brazilian film history....
Dangerous Game
Character: Servant (segment "Divertimento")
Two dark-comedy stories involving blackmail, murder and love triangles in Rio de Janeiro...
Já que Ninguém me Tira Para Dançar
Character: Self (archive footage)
Conducted from interviews with personalities who lived with Leila Diniz (1945-1972), the documentary is a record of an era and, above all, it rescues the participation in Brazilian culture of the actress who opened the way for the sexual revolution during the dark years of the dictatorship....
Divertimento
Character:
Mario is a playboy who is married to Lucía, a millionaire who has fallen on hard times, and he also maintains an adulterous relationship with one of her friends, the temperamental and libertine millionaire Lena Anderson....