Cinema

Filmmaking has long shaped how I think about place, identity, memory, and collective imagination. In my research, I use film as a participatory, arts-based method to foster dialogue, support community engagement, and make local narratives, practices, and struggles more visible in planning. I am particularly interested in how cinema can open space for other ways of seeing, listening, and imagining possible futures.

I am currently developing Sacred Flow, a documentary grounded in my dissertation research in the Brazilian Amazon. I am also co-developing a documentary with Bjørn Sletto about a community-based park design project in Dove Springs, Austin.

Before my academic work, I directed four short documentaries that screened at festivals around the world, including the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), the Santa Maria da Feira Film Festival in Portugal, and the Gramado Film Festival in Brazil. My film projects have received support from the Bahia State Department of Culture, the Bahia State Culture Fund (FUNCEB), and Brazil’s Audiovisual Law (Lei Rouanet), through sponsorship from Banco Santander. I have also worked on several films as an assistant director and script supervisor, and organized and curated film festivals in Brazil and the United States.