May, 2026.- In the 2026 advertising ecosystem, images must do more than just illustrate; they must possess density, weight, and memory. Juh Almeida, Director and Visual Artist at MYMAMA ENTERTAINMENT, stands as one of the most powerful voices in this transition. With a background spanning from still photography to directing telenovelas at the iconic Rede Globo (such as the acclaimed Vai na Fé), Almeida has perfected the art of narrative synthesis. Her approach, which she calls “cinematic advertising,” moves away from the purely commercial to inhabit the realm of sensory experience. For Juh, the brief is a structure, but language is an authorial construction where light, rhythm, and sound act as entry points into intimate worlds. Her work seeks not just to communicate, but to leave a trace: an image that lingers in the viewer’s mind long after the 30-second runtime has ended.
In this exclusive interview with Roastbrief, Juh Almeida breaks down how her academic research on the agency and complexity of Black female characters in television informs every frame she shoots. By challenging hegemonic positions and focusing on the subjectivity of those inhabiting the frame, Almeida brings a “Brazilian Hollywood” perspective to advertising, focusing on the invisible: the gesture, the pause, and the breath. Discover how her addition to the MYMAMA roster aims to expand the collective’s repertoire toward hybrid forms between documentary and fiction, and why in a world of accelerated consumption, she chooses to bet on aesthetic coherence and a precise gaze to turn every piece into an unforgettable cinematic gesture.
From Brief to Cinema: Your work is described as transforming briefs into “cinematic experiences” while maintaining strategic rigor. How do you balance the art of filmmaking with the commercial demands of advertising? Where do you refuse to compromise, and where are you willing to adapt?
Juh Almeida: I started in still photography, and from early on what interested me was translating aesthetics into sensory experience. I work from the premise that the brief defines the structure, but doesn’t dictate the language.
Balancing cinema and advertising, for me, is a matter of breaking down intention, understanding what is narratively essential and building a mise-en-scène that amplifies it without redundancy. My direction, in this context, is about what needs to be seen, what can be felt, and what should remain off-screen.
I don’t compromise on aesthetic coherence or on directing the viewer’s gaze. The image needs to have density; purely illustrative work tires me. I adapt to the engineering of time – rhythm, duration, format – and I like to use sound as the entry point into the narrative, ensuring that the integrity of the cinematic gesture remains intact.
Aesthetic Consistency Across Formats: You move fluidly between branded content, product films, institutional videos, and music videos while maintaining “aesthetic consistency and authorial identity.” How do you preserve your visual signature across such diverse formats and client demands? What’s the through-line that makes a Juh Almeida film recognizable?
Juh Almeida: Consistency lies in the construction of language. What runs through my films is an attention to presence, how the body occupies the frame, how time dilates or compresses within a scene, how light reveals or conceals.
I work largely from a logic of observation, creating shots that breathe, that allow the viewer to inhabit the image. Even within more commercial structures, I seek to create friction with the predictable, whether through rhythm, texture, or the relationship between sound and image.
I’m drawn to hearing from viewers that they felt inside the scene. Perhaps my signature lies in this tension between control and organicity. My films are recognizable, but more for a way of seeing than for a fixed style and that gaze tends to be intimate and precise. I’m interested in what escapes the surface, and I enjoy playing with the viewer’s own lived repertoire.
Black Female Characters in Brazilian Television: You’re researching Black female characters in Brazilian television drama for your master’s degree at USP. How does this academic and personal exploration inform the stories you tell in advertising and entertainment? What perspectives do you bring to commercial work that might be missing from the mainstream?
Juh Almeida: My master’s research at the University of São Paulo is grounded in an analysis of character construction, arc, agency, and point of view. I’ve always been troubled by the fact that, historically, Black female characters in television drama have been deprived of dramatic complexity, often stripped of the ability to operate as subjects and relegated to mere narrative functions.
This directly informs my work. I approach directing actors and building scenes through the lens of subjectivity, who looks, who is looked at, who drives the action. Even within short-form narratives, I’m interested in creating shifts away from this hegemonic position.
In commercial work, I carry a focus on the invisible layer of the image—that which lives in gesture, in pauses, in breath. It’s there that complexity can emerge, even within condensed formats.
The MyMama Roster: You’re joining a roster that includes Kid Burro, Lili Fialho, Quinto, Ricardo Souza, and others. What drew you to MyMama Entertainment specifically, and what do you hope to contribute to the collective’s creative reputation?
Juh Almeida: What drew me to MyMama was an understanding of directing as an authorial language. Even within a market-driven logic, there is a clear appreciation for the cinematic gesture, for the image as something thoughtfully constructed, for time as something deliberately shaped.
I come with a practice that moves between documentary and fiction, with an interest in hybrid forms. My films engage with memory, affective archives, directing actors, and presence, and I believe this can help expand the collective’s repertoire.
I’m interested in contributing with ideas, challenging formats, and proposing new ways of building narrative within advertising.
From Telenovela to Commercials: You’ve directed episodes of the telenovela “Vai na Fé” for Rede Globo. How does directing long-form, episodic narrative differ from directing commercial films? What skills from one discipline serve the other, and what do you have to leave behind when switching contexts?
Juh Almeida: Directing a telenovela like Vai na Fé, on TV Globo, means working within a grammar of continuity. There’s an industrial logic that demands speed, but also precision in maintaining character arcs and the coherence of the narrative world. I had to adapt quickly, and I loved it. I feel like I unlocked a directing megazord after going through what you might call Brazilian Hollywood.
In advertising, time operates differently, closer to synthesis than progression. Each shot has to function almost as an autonomous unit of meaning, while still building a cohesive whole.
What I bring from the telenovela experience is, above all, actor direction and the ability to find truth amid speed. What I leave behind is narrative dilation. In advertising, I work more with ellipsis, suggestion, and the condensation of meaning.
Transcending Communication: You’ve said you’re motivated when advertising “transcends mere communication and transforms film into an experience.” What does an “experience” look like in a 30-second or 60-second commercial? Can you give an example from your own work where you achieved this?
Juh Almeida: When I speak about experience, I’m referring to a sensory immersion built through language, how sound, image, rhythm, and duration are orchestrated to affect the viewer. In a 30- or 60-second film, this largely comes down to editing and to the relationship between the visible and the invisible: what lies off-screen, the duration of each shot, the breath between cuts. All of this shapes the experience and I would even say, a sense of solidity, creating advertising films that are remembered.
I aim to create films that don’t exhaust themselves in immediate understanding. I like to leave a trace, a sensation, a frame that lingers. And when that happens, advertising goes beyond communication and begins to operate in the realm of cinema. I approach every brief that comes my way as cinematic advertising.
