Award Winning Filmmaker
Hello! I’m a Latin American Award Winning Filmmaker, an Actor and a Writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I started acting when I was just 2 years old in my hometown in Brazil. During my whole childhood and teenage years I studied Theater, worked in a Theater Company and worked on many TV ads. When I turned 19, I moved to Rio de Janeiro to start my undergrad in Theater.
After 10 years building a solid career in Rio as an actor in Theater, movies and TV shows, I moved to the US in 2015. With the immigration I’ve experienced a deep process of self transformation and I’ve started creating, writing and editing my own films. (click on the picture to watch my portfolio)
Filmography
Phoenix Through the Mirror
2023 (to be released)
For the first semester of 2023, I'll release my other remote and quarantined short documentary Phoenix Through the Mirror that's about two Latin American women immigrants, at different ages and situations in life, who have to let go of their hair. One due to a medical treatment and the other to complete a deep process of self transformation. It’s a film about self love, self care, womanhood, feminine social image and breast cancer.
Burning Ballad
2022
In 2022 I released my first feature film that is a poetic experimental and independent documentary created from a material produced by a collective of artists in 2013 in Brazil. Burning Ballad - or Pira Poesia in Portuguese - received the Award for Merit in Revolution and Reform and Merit for Direction by "Docs Without Borders Film Festival" in 2022, in the US; Finalist by "4theatre selection" in 2022 and was Officially Selected by "Philadelphia Latino Film Festival 2022" - as US Premiere and "Kalakari Film Festival & Awards 2022" in India - as World Premiere. There are images from many different places in the film: Northeast, South and Southeast regions in Brazil and also from South Africa, Mozambique and United States. It’s a film where I explore a poetic vision that raises urgent questions on censorship, spiritual awareness, economic injustice and segregation through the legacy of the Brazilian poet and composer Torquato Neto. The poet was one of the creators of Tropicalia - the artistic and counterculture wave that emerged in the late 1960's during some of the harshest years of the military dictatorship.
The film was Invited to be screened in the "Integration Week of Celso Lisboa School of Arts" for cinema and theater students in Rio, Brazil, August, 2022. I was Invited to write a chapter about Burning Ballad process in the new book "Torquato Neto Obra Inacabada", April, 2022. The book is a partnership with Piauí Federal University in Brazil and it is about the poet's legacy and works after his death in 1972. The film is going to be screened in the event "Torquato 50 years", a celebration of Torquato's 50th death anniversary with the release of the aforementioned book in inTeresina, Piauí, Brazil, November, 2022. (click on the image to watch the trailer)
In 2020 after the pandemic started I released Caramujo, a totally remote and independent documentary short about natural birth, c-section surgery culture and obstetric violence in Brazil during COVID quarantine. While COVID-19 pandemic is making huge changes in our lives and perspectives, a Latin American quarantined pregnant woman needs to struggle against a whole system to give birth the way she wants. Caramujo received Merit Award for Social Issues by “Docs Without Borders Film Festival 2021” in the US; was selected Finalist by “Create from Home Film Festival 2020”, Finalist for Best Female Director by "San Francisco Arthouse Short Festival 2022"and Semi-Finalist by “Rhode Island International Film Festival 2020” and by “Jelly Film Festival 2021”, and Officially Selected by “New Faces New Voices Film Festival 2020”, “2020 Directors Circle Festivals of Shorts”, “Other Venice Film Festival 2021”- all of them in the US; "Demetera International Short Film Festival 2021" in Paris, France and "Kalakari Film Festival & Awards 2021" in India. The film was Invited to be screened by “Flickers' Between Takes: A Cinema Fantasia 2020” a Special Event of Cinematic Works that demonstrate the resiliency and tenacity of the human spirit. The film was Invited to participate in the "45th performance of Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers' Inhale Performance Series", in "Inhale on Camera event" in Philadelphia, June, 2021. And also will be part of the gallery of a Film Platform made by the founders of "Demetera International Film Festival" in France from January, 2023. (click on the image to watch the teaser)
2020
Caramujo
Some of US
2016
In 2016 I created Some of US, a documentary short film with a poetic reflection about Iranian refugees and immigrants that shows a touch of the powerful Persian culture. I interviewed a native Iranian immigrant and created with his perspective a film in two languages, English and Farsi, about the delicate and painful feeling of an immigrant looking at his original country.
From the conception of Some of US I realized that there is a connection between immigrants, no matter where they come from. I see this connection as "an outsider looking in” at our original countries that results in a cultural exchange between our countries and the US. It's a spontaneous practice of the cultural preservation of our former cultures. The documentary short is a poetic reflexion about immigration and freedom - how immigration relates to a deep dive inside ourselves and to a connection between cultures. "Some of US” was Officially Selected by "Aword Indie 50 min Film Festival" in Los Angeles, US; “FIC-ESMI Festival” in Buenos Aires, Argentina; “The Americas Film Festival of New York” in New York, US; “FICP” in Patagonia, Argentina; "VII Visualizame” in Madrid, Spain; and “Her Story - Women’s History Month Film Salon” in Philadelphia, US; between 2016 and 2020.
In 2015 I made my very first short Gigoia Island, a film about a philosophical discussion between two women. The film was Awarded by “Festival do Minuto”, a famous, long-standing 1 minute cinema festival in Brazil in 2016.
Gigoia Island
2015