Wagner Moura recently won Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Drama at the Golden Globes for The Secret Agent, becoming the second Brazilian in consecutive years to take the award after Fernanda Torres won the previous year for I'm Still Here. These back-to-back victories mark a landmark moment for Brazilian cinema, and they have drawn fresh attention to a shared credit in the two stars' pasts: the pair once appeared together in Basic Sanitation: The Movie, an underrated 2007 comedy the article argues deserves renewed appreciation. It remains the only project the two have made together.

The film is a lighthearted satire set in a small village in Southern Brazil, where residents have long struggled to persuade local authorities to fix their lack of basic sanitation, chiefly a stream where waste is dumped openly. When Marina (Torres) and Joaquim (Moura) find there is no government money for sanitation but there is funding for a state-approved film production — for exactly the sum they need, and which must be spent or returned to the federal government — they decide to make a movie in order to fund the sanitation work. Despite having no experience, equipment or cast, they draw the whole village into the project, and the piece becomes a meta-commentary on filmmaking and the way shared creativity can unite a community. The article also uses the coincidence to note Brazil's strong comedic tradition alongside its acclaimed dramas.