Maria Clara Escobar studied screenwriting and direction at the Darcy Ribeiro Film School in Rio de Janeiro. Her first short film, Domingo, was selected to participate in many film festivals, including the San Sebastian International Film Festival. She founded her production company, Aeroplano Filmes, which produced her second short film, Passeio de Família, winner of the Porta Curtas prize at the Curta Cinema International Film Festival. Maria Clara wrote and was assistant director of Found Memories, directed by Julia Murat, which won more than 28 prizes (such as best screenplay at the 2012 FIFALE Festival in Rabat, Morocco), was shown in more than 35 festivals, including the Venice, San Sebastian and Havana International Film Festivals, and was subsequently released in 5 countries. With Os Dias com Ele, her first feature documentary, she was selected to participate in the DocStation of the 2012 Berlinale Talent Campus, the BAFICI Talent Campus, the Pitching DocMontevideo and the Edinburgh Pitch 2012. Os Dias com Ele premiered in 2013 at the 16^th Mostra de Cinema de Tiradentes, Brazil, where it was awarded the Critics, Young Jury and Ministry of Foreign Affairs prizes. In the same year, Maria Clara was selected to the MacDowell Colony and Millay Colony residencies to develop her next fiction feature, Desterro.

Desterro — Three different points of views of mourning – A journey to Argentina, with no return; the pain of losing someone; and the bureaucratic impossibility of bringing back a beloved’s body to Brazil, to finally bury her.