BERNSTEIN’S WALL Introduced by Filmmaker Douglas Tirola

A filmmaker from Pernambuco, Brazil, Marianna Brennand graduated in Film from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is a director, screenwriter, and producer. Her career has been marked by a solid and respected trajectory as a documentarian, with works such as Capoeira: Freedom of the Soul (2001), O COCO, A RODA, O PNEU E O FAROL (2007), and FRANCISCO BRENNAND (2012), which won the Itamaraty and Abraccine Awards for Best Brazilian Documentary at the São Paulo International Film Festival, establishing her as a filmmaker with a sensitive and investigative gaze on Brazilian culture and social reality. With MANAS (2024), she makes her fiction debut in a film widely regarded as one of the most relevant in contemporary Brazilian cinema, born from more than ten years of research in the Marajó Archipelago after being deeply moved by stories of sexual violence endured by girls and women in the region; guided by her documentary background, she traveled extensively through Marajó to understand that reality up close. Since its world premiere at Giornate degli Autori during the 2024 Venice Film Festival, where it won the top Jury Prize awarded for the first time to a Brazilian female director, MANAS has garnered 42 international awards from audiences and critics alike, including the Women in Motion Emerging Talent Award at the Cannes Film Festival, presented by Iris Knobloch and François-Henri Pinault, also for the first time to a Brazilian female filmmaker. The film was among the top contenders in Brazil’s Oscar® 2026 selection process, was officially chosen to represent the country at the 2026 Goya Awards, and is a finalist in three categories at the Premios Platino, the leading awards recognizing excellence in Ibero-American cinema and audiovisual production. Currently, Marianna is directing a 13-episode series that pays tribute to Brazilian music legend Chico Buarque.