Tata Amaral (born 1960, in

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

) is a Brazilian director, writer, producer and actress. She has won various awards across

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, including 'Best director' and 'Best film'. At a young age, Tata lost the father of her daughter. As a mother and widow, she struggled financially to pursue a career in filmmaking. Under the military dictatorship (a time that saw a rise to censorship of the arts), she participated in rallies orchestrated by the leftist, student movement. Tata received help from Brazilian state programs that financed films throughout the 1980s. She has remained sided with the Worker's Party, as is evident in her work. She became associated with other directors of the 1990s known for restoring Brazilian cinema to a level of commercial and critical success. Her trilogy (''Um Céu de Estrelas, Através de Janela, Antônia)'' portrays three different stages in a woman's life: birth, maturity, and death. ''Antônia'' was picked up by

TV Globo TV Globo (stylized as tvglobo; , ), formerly known as Rede Globo de Televisão (; shortened to Rede Globo) or simply known as Globo, is a Brazilian free-to-air Television broadcasting, television network, launched by media proprietor Roberto M ...

and made into a television series, just as '' City of God'' had been adapted for television in ''

City of Men ''Cidade dos Homens'' (English title: ''City of Men'') is a Brazilian television show created by Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirelles, the directors of the film '' City of God''. The series was watched by 35 million viewers in Brazil and was rele ...

.'' Tata's films are often politically and/or socially charged. Several themes that are recurring in her films include the Brazilian dictatorship, poverty in the

favela Favela () is an umbrella name for several types of impoverished neighborhoods in Brazil. The term, which means slum or ghetto, was first used in the Slum of Providência in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was b ...

s, women's role in society and the contemporary urban culture of Brazil.

Filmography

* 2014 - ''Psi'' (TV series) * 2013 - ''Trago Comigo'' * 2011 - '' Hoje'' * 2010 - ''Carnaval dos Deuses'' (short) * 2009 - ''Trago Comigo'' (TV series) * 2009 - ''O Rei do Carimã'' (TV documentary) * 2007 - ''Antônia'' (TV series) * 2006 - '' Antônia'' * 2000 - ''Através da Janela'' * 1996 - ''A Starry Sky (Um Céu de Estrelas)'' * 1991 - ''Viver a Vida'' (short) * 1988 - ''História Familiar'' (short) * 1986 - ''Poema: Cidade'' (documentary short)

External links

Tata Amaral: interview with TimeOut Sào Paulo

Antonia

indieWIRE Interview

References

3. Bayman, Louis, and Natália Pinazza. ''Directory of World Cinema: Brazil''. Bristol: Intellect, 2013. Web. 4. Marsh, Leslie Louise. ''Embodying Citizenship in Brazilian Women's Film, Video, and Literature, 1971 To 1988''. Diss. U of Michigan, 2008. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Microform, 2009. Print. 5. Marsh, Leslie L. ''Brazilian Women's Filmmaking: From Dictatorship to Democracy''. Urbana: U of Illinois, 2013. Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Web. 1961 births Living people Brazilian film directors Brazilian women film directors {{Brazil-film-director-stub