Porto Alegre (Brasil), 1949

Por Luiz Felipe Alves de Miranda

A film and television director, she began her career making auteur films, debuting as a feature film director with Gaijin, Caminhos da Liberdade (1980), a historical drama about Japanese immigration to Brazil. Her second feature was the biographical drama Parahyba, Mulher Macho (1983), based on José Joffily’s book Revolta e Revolução, 50 Anos Depois. Her film Patriamada (1985) mixed documentary and fiction, drawing inspiration from the political realities of the time.

She directed her first popular film, Lua de Cristal (1990), featuring TV stars Xuxa and Sérgio Mallandro. She then directed the drama Fica Comigo (1996), which addressed the issue of street children. She also directed the comedian Renato Aragão in O Noviço Rebelde (1997). Following that, she directed more popular films, including Xuxa Requebra (1999) and Xuxa Pop Star (2000), the latter of which she took over mid-production, replacing Paulo Sérgio Almeida. She revisited the theme of her first film in the historical epic Gaijin, Ama-me Como Sou (2005), which included scenes filmed in Japan.

Other works include Xuxa em O Mistério de Feiurinha (2009), Aparecida – O Milagre (2010), Amazônia Caruana (2010), and the documentary Tomie (2014), about the Japanese-Brazilian artist Tomie Ohtake.