Paula Pretta

Express Kidnapping

Sao Paulo, Brazil. Isabel, a 25-year-old girl, is kidnapped. The first ATM the criminals try to withdraw money from is broken. It's almost 10:00pm. The kidnappers realize they will not be able to get to the next one on time. What was meant to be an express kidnapping becomes an all-night imprisonment.

Just Like Our Parents

Rosa is in her late 30s, a child of the 1970s with divorced parents. She lives with her own family in São Paulo. Overwhelmed by an eruption of individual passions, lies and the expectations of three generations, she tries to discover who she really is.

Bring It Inside

Telmo is a retired theater director that realizes he doesn't remember the time he spent kept in jail during the military dictatorship in Brazil. He decides to stage a play and, with threads of memory, he improvises the lines with his young cast. Telmo dives into his own history and ends up revealing for himself what, being so painful, he'd rather forget.

Love in Sampa

Cosmo is a taxi driver who loves traveling around São Paulo. One day, when he meets Mauro in a bar, he receives an unusual proposal: to record testimonials from passengers in his taxi, in which people would talk about what they like in São Paulo.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Produced for TV Cultura within the project Telefilmes IV: Music and City, this made-for-TV film follows the story of Erica, a 14-year-old teenager growing up in Brazil, who has to learn how to deal with her British mother who is going off the rails. Living amidst an anxiety that switches between fear and love for her mother, Erica tries to find her way in a ship that seems to be sinking rapidly. It is in this moment that she picks up a guitar, and in her relationship with it, finds a way to re-shape her reality.

Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury

“Rio 2096 – A Story of Love and Fury” is an animated film that portrays the love between an immortal hero and Janaína, the woman he has been in love with for 600 years. As a backdrop to the romance, the feature highlights four phases of Brazilian history: colonization, slavery, the Military Regime and the future, in 2096, when there will be a war for water.

Chamada a Cobrar

A high class lady from Brazil falls into a fake kidnapping scam when she answers a stranger’s phone call. Believing that one of her daughters has been kidnapped, she is guided by a terrifying voice for 12 hours through the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Onde Está a Felicidade?

Teodora discovers that her husband was having a virtual relationship and enters a crisis, which results in the loss of her job as a presenter of a culinary program. Disillusioned, she decides to hit the road and sets out on a journey of self-discovery, walking the Way of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

In São Paulo, Brazil, the lonely 40-something guitar teacher Baby lives a tedious life in a low middle-class apartment. She is addicted to her only companions: cigarettes. Baby has a constant conflict with her two sisters, over a couch she inherited from their deceased aunt. When Max, a restaurant musician, moves to the next door apartment, Baby has a crush on him and sees a chance to have a life again. Soon they start having a love affair, and Baby decides to quit smoking. However, her abstinence will be tough to deal with, when she notices Max still misses his ex-wife.

Paulista

Three metropolitan stories entwine in São Paulo. Would-be actress Marina arrives in the city looking for independence, falls madly in love with Justine, a bisexual rock singer, and is swept up into her wild, edgy lifestyle. Marina shares a flat on Avenida Paulista with Suzana, a mysterious lawyer who begins a relationship with a male colleague who is unaware that she's transsexual. Jay lives a few floors above them. He is a frustrated writer trying to give a meaning to his life by idealizing a stunningly beautiful prostitute, whom he transforms into a sort of muse. Following the frenetic pace of the city, the three "Paulista" characters will experience the euphoria of passion and its downside.

Antônia

Determined to escape their poverty-stricken lives, four talented young women living on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, form an all-female rap group but find their road to success is riddled with sexism, racism, and violence. One by one, they succumb to their grim realities...until they discover that out of struggle comes strength, and out of strength, the courage to continue on.

Drained

A pawn shop proprietor buys used goods from desperate locals – as much to play perverse power games as for his own livelihood, but when the perfect rump and a backed-up toilet enter his life, he loses all control.

Up Against Them All

A story about the lies, treachery and vengeance of a middle-class family living on the outskirts of São Paulo. Four characters try desperately to change their lives, but are unable to escape their destiny.