Born in San Martino de Cileno, in Italy, Afonso Segreto was the first cinematographer and director in the history of cinema in Brazil, where he arrived in 1897, bringing to Rio de Janeiro “cinematographic views” of his country exhibited by his brother, Paschoal Segreto, in the Hall of Novelties, in Paris. On the 19th of June 1898, returning from a journey to Italy where he had been searching for film equipment and new views, he photographed the first images of Brazil in motion: scenes of the fortresses and warships in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, taken on board the French ship Brésil.
In his second filming, he focused on the third anniversary commemorations of Marshal Floriano Peixoto, on the 29th of June of the same year. His third view of Rio de Janeiro, six days later, was the disembarkation of the President Prudente de Morais and his retinue at the Marine Arsenal.
Always working for the Paschoal Segreto Company, he captured historical moments, political events and landscapes on the old capital of Brazil up to the first few years of the 20th century, when he had taught the rudiments of cinematographic technology to various professionals. After a stay in São Paulo, as head of a photographic studio, he returned to Italy where he died, almost unknown.