Mariana de Melo is a Brazilian film producer, director and researcher originally from Minas Gerais. Her short film The Silence of Iron (O silêncio elementar) premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2024 and has already been screened at more than 30 film festivals around the world. The feature-length version of The Silence of Iron will be shot in the second half of 2025. Her feature-length fiction project El recado del fuego is in development and was selected in 2023 for the Nuevas Miradas program of the International Film and Television School of Cuba. Mariana has worked on more than 20 Brazilian feature films and series, including notable films such as Petra Costa’s The Edge of Democracy, nominated for an Oscar^® in 2020, and has participated in major film events in Brazil and around the world.

Mariana was a participant in Cine Qua Non Lab’s 2024 Taller de Líneas Argumentales lab with El recado del fuego.

El recado del fuego [co-written with Yasmin Guimarães] — Two sisters, Ana and Araci, return to their hometown on the banks of the São Francisco River, where they discover that memory and nature hold a mysterious “fire message” that connects them to their grandmother’s story and the ancestral magic of the place. In a narrative that blends their memories with the present, they cross vast plains, traverse rivers, and arrive at a Folia de Reis festival in a world of magic and unexpected surprises.