Matias Mariani graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and worked extensively as a producer on films such as Fish Dreams, Drained, Adrift, Rio Sex Comedy, and Rule 34. In 2014 Matias directed the documentary I Touched All Your Stuff, which premiered at FID Marseille, won the Best Editing Award at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, and was released theatrically in Brazil and the United States. Matias followed with the fiction feature Shine Your Eyes, which premiered in the Panorama section at the 2020 Berlinale and was acquired by Netflix, receiving strong reviews from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and maintaining a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In 2021 Matias co-directed Cora, winner of the TFI Latin American Fund. As a screenwriter, Matias worked on Hoje, Pendular, Cora, and Shine Your Eyes. Matias has mentored at the Tribeca Film Institute, served on the Sundance Lab committee, taught film and television production, and directed episodes for Globoplay. Matias was also one of the directors of the Netflix series Rulers of Fortune.

Matias was a participant in Cine Qua Non Lab’s 2015 Script Revision Lab with Shine Your Eyes.

O Estranho Menino / Nature Boy — When a weary public school principal in São Paulo takes in a boy no one can identify — who speaks no known language and seems untouched by the world— he’s drawn into a surreal, tender, and increasingly dangerous bond that begins to bend reality itself.