BIOGRAPHIE
Brazil Programmer, director Born in Rio de Janeiro and holding both a law degree and a doctorate in international business, Beth Sá Freire first worked as a lawyer. After a few forays into the seventh art – for a while she also owned an independent movie theater with some friends – she left her home town in 1996 to settle down in São Paulo where she definitively switched careers. At a documentary series that she negotiated the rights for, she approached the project’s producer, Zita Carvalhosa, who invited her to join the team of the São Paulo International Short Film Festival. As the Festival’s assistant director since 2001, she has been in charge of special programs and is a member of the selection committee. Concurrently, she organizes retrospectives and film series at independent events and occasionally helps to program other festivals (FIMCine – Festival Internacional de Mulheres no Cinema, Goiânia Mostra Curtas, etc.). She is regularly asked to participate on review boards and jurys across the globe; she is also a correspondent for foreign festivals, in particular Oberhausen’s (from 2006), the International Critics’ Week (from 2003 to 2008) and the Guanajuato International Film Festival, beginning in 2022. She has just completed her first film, O Trem da Utopia (The Train from Utopia), co-directed by Fabrizio Mambro, a documentary for which she also provides the voice over. She is currently working on her next film. FEATURE FILM Director, scriptwriter 2021: O Trem da Utopia (co-dir. & co-script. Fabrizio Mambro)