About Us | LAÍS BODANZKY

LAÍS BODANZKY made her directorial debut with the short film Red Card, about a girl surrounded by boys discovering her sexuality. This award-winning short was selected for the New York Film Festival in 1995.

She was recognized as a filmmaker with the feature film Brainstorm (2001), a joint production between Brazil (Buriti Filmes, Dezenove and Gullane) and Italy (Fábrica Cinema - Marco Müller) that won various awards and introduced actor Rodrigo Santoro to the world.

Just Like Our Parents, her fourth feature film, premiered at the 67 Festival in Berlin (Panorama Special) in 2017, swathed in fiery feminist debates and nominated for the Teddy award. It opened to raves in the international film press. It was the most award-winning Brazilian film that year.

Laís has made other highly acclaimed films, such as The Ballroom (2007), a joint production with France – Canal Arte, and The Best Things in the World (2010), which debuted at the Rome Film Festival. In addition to film and TV documentaries, including Cine Mambembe - Cinema Discovers Brazil and Olympic Women, for the ESPN channel.

Filmmaker Luiz Bolognesi is her partner at the Buriti Filmes production company, as the producer behind the feature films Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury (Annecy Cristal Award for Best Animation in 2013) and Ex-Shaman (Berlin/Panorama Special Jury Award 2018).

The daughter of filmmaker Jorge Bodanzky, the man behind Iracema – Uma Transa Amazônica (Semaine de la Critique Cannes 1976) and Jakobine (1979), Laís grew up around filmmaking. Raised between the São Paulo neighborhoods of Higienópolis and Perdizes, she studied Theater with theatrical director Antunes Filho and ended up receiving a degree in Film from Faap.

Over 15 years, she has coordinated the educational Tela Brasil social projects, showing movies in low-income areas of Brazil, fostering the Brazilian film industry and bringing over one million people to movie theaters, most for the first time in their lives.