At the beginning of her career Joana was an advertising copywriter, and segwayed into the audiovisual realm through advertising commercials alongside director, Pedro Becker. Her first partnership with Matias Mariana, current partner in Primo Filmes, was as a producer on Heitor Dhalia’s feature film “Drained”, elected Best Film at the São Paulo International Film Festival (2006), and part of the Sundance Film Festival’s official selection (2007). She produced “3.5 Overpass,” at the same time, which won the “É tudo Verdade” (It’s All True) Festival (2007), and “Fabricating Tom Zé” which won Best Documentary at the São Paulo International Film Festival (2006).
In 2007, she wrote and directed her first short-film, “Day In Day Out” and was the third assistant director (+)
on Heitor Dhalia’s “Adrift” launched commercially in 2009. Her second short film “Horse,” was launched at the 2011 Paulinia Film Festival. Joana is currently dedicating her time to her first feature film, the documentary “Marias,” which she is both directing and producing, and which won the government grant for Encouraging Paulista Cinema, provided by the Secretary of Culture of the State of São Paulo; in addition, she is also producing the features “The Mountain,” and “Thirty.”

Klaus Mitteldorf was born on June 23, 1953 in São Paulo.
With a degree in architecture (1979) he started working as a surf photographer in the 70s. In the 80s he specialized in Fashion and Advertising Film and Photography. Vogue, Elle and Playboy, in Europe and Brazil are some of the magazines that have published his work.
He has been working with all of the big advertising agencies both in Brazil and in Europe since 1982.
In 2002 Klaus won the 1st Conrado Wessel Foundation Photography Award São Paulo, the greatest award given to photographers in Brazil. He has written several books and has done numerous exhibits. His first cinematographic piece was the documentary “Terral”, shot on a super 8 in 1975, which is the source (+)
of inspiration for the feature film “Rio-Santos”, being developed in partnership with Primo.

Maíra Bühler is an anthropologist who started working with film as a researcher and script assistant. In 2007, Maíra directed her first feature film, “3.5 Overpass” alongside João Sodré and Paulo Pastorelo; and won Best Film at the “É tudo Verdade” (It’s All True) Festival and the Prix Révélation Ambassade de France award. The documentary was screened at several domestic and international festivals like, festival Biarritz Amérique Latine, Latin American Film Festival of Triest and Bogota Film Festival. In 2009, her and Matias Mariana co-directed the documentary “Abroad,” projected selected by the DOC TV CPLP, and broadcast in over 8 countries; Maira and Matias are also developing the argument and script for the feature “The City Within,” which was awarded the São Paulo Municipal Secretary of Culture co-sponsorship grant. In 2011 she (+) developed and directed the doc TV series “Beauty Shop Talk,” which was 13 episodes long and broadcast on GNT. That same year she finished yet another documentary, the feature “She Dreamed I Died,” for which her and Matias Mariana won the best director award at the Paulinia Film Festival 2011; Maira and Matias are currently co-directing the made for TV movie Angel Hair.

Matia Mariana got his bachelor’s degree at NYU. In 2003 he directed his first short film “São Paulo’s No”, he was a post-production assistant on Hector Babenco’s movie “Carandiru,” and an assistant director on Fernando Meirelle’s mini-series “City of Men”, in addition to working on several advertising commercials. In 2006, alongside Joana Mariani, he founded Primo Filmes, a partnership, which despite its short life, has produced award winning pieces: “Drained”, best film at the São Paulo International Film Festival (2006), “Fabricating Tom Zé”, best documentary also at the São Paulo International Film Festival and “3.5 Overpass” winner of the “É tudo Verdade” (It’s All True) Festival (2007). In 2008, he was the executive producer of the short films “The Name of the Cat”, by Pedro Ribeiro Coutinho, and “Coda,” by Marcos Camargo, as well (+)
as the feature “Adrift”, by Heitor Dhalia. Between 2008 and 2009 he produced the TV series “Sight and Sound Creatures”, (Futura Channel) and “I Bring With Me” (TV Cultura). In addition to being the executive producer, he directed the documentary “Abroad”, winner of the Portuguese Speaking Countries Community DOCTV award. He is now producing “Rio Sex Comedy”, a Franco-Brazilian production directed by Jonathan Nossiter scheduled to be launched in 2011, and which includes Bill Pullman and Charlotte Rampling; “The Mountain”, a Brazil-Italy-Portugal co-production about the presence of Brazilian forces in the Second World War, which was shot entirely in Italy in February 2011; “Thirty”, a fictional film on the life of Joãosinho Trinta, with Matheus Nachtergaele as the main character; among other projects like TV shows, movies, short films and documentaries. Matia is currently working on his first fictional script entitled “The City Within.” In 2011 he won a Best Director award at the Paulinia Film Festival for the “She Dreamed I Died,” documentary he directed alongside Maira Bühler.

Paulo Machline started his career in 1989, as an assistant director on commercials. In 1994, he became a director. In 1999, he produced and directed his first short film, “A Soccer Story”, for which he won several domestic and international awards, including an Oscar nomination in 2001. He also directed episodes for the French TV series “Petits Mythes Urbains”, a Universal Pictures and Gaumont Television co-production. Between 2002 and 2004, he co-produced Mauro Lima’s feature film “God Jr”, as well as two documentaries. In the awarded “Children of Samba”, he was responsible for both the script and the editing. In 2008, he shot “Stillborn”, his first fiction feature film, an adaptation of the book by Lourenço Mutarelli, launched at the Rio Film Festival in 2009. He lives and works in São Paulo where he develops and executes feature film, (+) documentary and TV content projects. His main focus for 2011 is to direct his second fictional feature film: “Thirty”, about the life of carnival designer Joãosinho Trinta. The film will be produced by Primo.

Paulo Pastorelo has a degree in architecture from USP and a Master’s Degree in Cinematographic and Audiovisual Studies from Sorbonne (France). He directed “3.5 Overpass”, alongside Maíra Bühler and João Sodré, film which won Best Film at the at the “É tudo Verdade” (It’s All True) Festival, as well as a R$100 thousand prize for the Window to the Contemporary award. He recently directed “Vila Nova Cachoeirinha”, which won the City of São Paulo grant for co-sponsorship of documentary production – History of São Paulo’s neighborhoods project – 3rd edition; and “Tokiori,” a documentary feature film on the Japanese community in Graminha, on the countryside of the State of São Paulo.

With degrees in Radio and Television from FAAP, and Economics from GV, Peu has always been interested in the audiovisual world and has been directing since 2003. He has acquired much experience by directing projects for GNT, Multishow and Turner. His TV experience has made him a very versatile director, who always inserts new languages and formats in advertising and advertainment. At Primo, Peu directed the series “Capricho Fashion Season,” in addition to content for clients like Philips, Fiat and Editora Abril.

With a degree in Graphic Design from Belas Artes, Renata Rico specialized in motion graphics and special effects. Art director and multi-technique film director, she has been working with post production for over 10 years. She has done over 50 commercials through several production houses, including Trattoria de Filmes and O2 Filmes. In 2010, in addition to commercials, she directed two videos for Arnaldo Antunes’s “Young Citizen”, project, and developed the art for the animated series “Clara in Foodland”, for Discovery Kids Mexico.
At Primo, she created the opening for the series “Sigh and Sound Creatures”, in addition to other projects still being developed.

Tata Amaral is among the most talented contemporary Brazilian film professionals. Her films have been awarded over 50 times at both domestic and international festivals. Among the pieces produced and directed by Tata are “A Starry Sky”, (1996), elected by critics as one of the top three films of the 90s, and “Antonia” (2006), a feature film which led to two season of a series by the same name broadcast on Globo and nominated for an Emmy (2007), the Oscars of television. “Antonia” hit spectator number records and set trends in motion with its music and character styles. She also signs the series “I Bring With Me”, broadcast in 2009 by TV Cultura and nominated four times at the Brazil TV Quality Award, including for best director. She directed “Today”, a Tangerina (her production house) and Primo Filmes co-production.

São Paulo born script writer and director, Teo got his film degree from FAAP in 2005. He has been working with film, television, documentaries, series and internet videos for eight years. He worked at MTV Brazil for four years, and has been working freelance for the last three, where among other things he wrote, directed and dubbed the series “Ok, Let’s Talk about Music” (2007) and was one of the creators and writers during the first year of “15 Minutes”, with Marcelo Adnet (2008). In 2010, he was one of the writers on MTV Comedy, which won the best comedy show award at APCA. After leaving MTV he spent 2008 and 2009 developing, scripting and directing “Sight and Sound Creatures”, alongside Cao Hamburger, Paulinho Caruso and Primo Filmes, for the Futura Channel. In 2009, also with Caruso and Primo he won the City of São Paulo (+)
grant for developing a feature film script, with the “Ordinary Intrigue”.
In 2010 he co-wrote Tata Amaral’s short film “Carnival of the Gods”, which integrates the international feature “Then and Now: Beyond Borders and Differences.”
He is currently writing a fictional series with O2 filmes for Rede Globo and HBO, a new season for MTV Comedy as well as developing a new series for FUTURA with Cao Hamburger, Paulo Caruso and Primo Filmes

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1965, he studied film at the San Antonio de Los Baños International School of Film and Television, in Cuba. His first film was the documentary “Soy Cuba, the Siberian mammoth” (2004), about the soviet-cuban film Soy Cuba directed by Mikhail Kalatozov in the early 60s. This film won Ferraz the best documentary and best film awards at the Gramado Festival. He directed the short film “Germano”, which was part of the collective feature “The State of the World”, that brings directors from all over the world together in this Portuguese production. The project was selected for screening at the Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. He is shooting his first fictional feature film “The Mountain,” this year in Italy.