December, 2025.- Lili Fialho’s work is defined by a deeply human gaze—intimate, political, and rooted in stories that history has often pushed aside. Whether she is working with professional actors, non-actors, or communities rarely seen on screen, her filmmaking begins with the same principle: listening, trust, and a horizontal creative process as the foundation for true emotional authenticity.
Throughout her career, Fialho has moved fluidly between advertising, documentary, fiction, and photography, directing films for global brands such as Unilever, Netflix, Google, and Ambev, while remaining firmly committed to socially driven projects. Her voice has become especially powerful in telling the stories of women’s football in Brazil, a universe shaped by decades of silencing, resilience, and the insistence on joy and freedom despite repression.
Her recent arrival at MyMama Entertainment marks a natural alignment with a production company known for championing diverse, auteur-led narratives. Within this environment, Lili continues to expand her filmography through projects that reclaim forgotten female histories, challenge dominant narratives, and balance cinematic poetry with ethical responsibility.
In this Roastbrief interview, Lili Fialho discusses her creative process, the evolving storytelling around women’s sports, the balance between commercial work and social impact, and the urgent need for structural change to create lasting space and opportunity for women directors in today’s audiovisual industry.
- Your work is known for its intimate lens on real characters and especially women’s stories. How do you approach creating emotional authenticity on set, both with actors and non-actors?
At the simplest level, I see myself as someone who is obsessed with stories and with the people inside them. Emotional authenticity starts long before the camera is on: I try to meet people where they are, listen to them, and be present as a human being, not just as “the director.” I like to start building trust before the shoot, creating a space where they feel safe to share who they are and what they believe.
On set, that becomes a very horizontal process. I invite actors and non-actors to build the scene with me and with the crew — we rehearse, we talk, we adjust the script if needed — so that their own memories, gestures and way of speaking can come into the film. In many of my social projects, people have never been on a set before, so my role is also to protect them emotionally. When people feel that the story also belongs to them, not only to me, the emotions tend to arrive in a much more honest way.
- You’ve built a strong voice within women’s football through projects like Álbum do Futuro and Absolutas. What draws you to this universe, and how do you see the storytelling around women’s sports evolving as the World Cup approaches?
I’m a feminist, and I’ve always been drawn to stories of women who were erased from history. My connection with women’s football started there. I pay attention to stories that feel urgent, that are asking to be told — not only the ones I “want” to tell. In Brazil, the history of women’s football has been silenced for decades: most people don’t know that women were legally forbidden to play for 42 years. We celebrate Brazil as “the country of football”, but we rarely talk about the women who insisted on playing anyway.
Storytelling around women’s sports is still not evolving as fast as it should, but I do feel a change coming. With the World Cup approaching, there is an opportunity to look at these athletes with genuine interest — not just during the tournament, but every day. Right now I’m in post-production on a short film about an extraordinary woman from the 1930s and 40s, considered a pioneer of women’s football in Brazil. Through her story, and through fiction, I’m trying to bring audiences closer to this universe and reconnect the country with a part of its own memory.
- MyMama describes your arrival as a natural alignment with their commitment to impactful, auteur-driven narratives. What creative possibilities opened up for you by joining this particular production company?
I’ve admired MyMama Entertainment for a long time — especially the women who built and lead it. I’m a director who moves between advertising, entertainment, documentary, photography and more hybrid forms, and it’s rare to find a company that embraces that multiplicity instead of trying to put you in a box.
At MyMama I feel that all these parts of me can coexist and even feed each other. They understand that people are not just one label; we can be many things at once. That opens up possibilities: to develop authorial projects inside a commercial structure, to bring social-impact stories into brand films, and to
create in a truly collaborative way with a team that shares my values.
- Your first project at MyMama is an auteur short film co-directed with Bruna Linzmeyer. What themes or emotions were most important for you to explore in this piece, and how does it connect with your broader filmography?
My first project at MyMama is a short film I co-direct with Bruna Linzmeyer, based on the life of a woman who was a pioneer of women’s football in the 1940s. What moved me was the chance to talk about injustice and desire in the same story: the violence of an authoritarian regime and, at the same time, the joy of women who insisted on playing, loving and existing freely. The film looks at a house that becomes a safe haven for these players — a place where they can dance, fall in love and train — until the repression arrives.
Like my other authorial projects, it is driven by the need to bring erased female stories back into the frame. I like stories that can stir something in the audience
- sometimes anger, sometimes tenderness — but always a feeling that reality could be different. This short connects directly with my broader filmography around women’s football and social projects, and it continues my search for a female and sensitive point of view on Brazilian history.
- You’ve worked on films for global brands like Unilever, Netflix, Google, and Ambev while also directing socially driven
documentaries. How do you navigate the balance between commercial storytelling and projects rooted in social impact?
I started working in production companies when I was 19, so I really grew up on sets. I’m genuinely in love with the act of filming, whether it’s a campaign for a global brand or a small documentary in a neighborhood field. Commercial storytelling and social-impact projects are very different in their conditions, but very connected in the skills they demand. Advertising has taught me to create under pressure, to build a vision together with agencies and clients, and to search for strong, clear images. My social projects keep me grounded: they remind me why I tell stories in the first place and who I’m speaking to.
When I move between these worlds, I try to let them contaminate each other in a good way. I bring my experience with social projects, my feminist perspective and my sensibility into commercial films, and I bring the craft, structure and scale I learn with brands into my documentaries and authorial work.
- Your partnership with Kátia Lund and your experience directing award-winning documentary series have shaped your documentary voice. What have these collaborations taught you about capturing social realities without losing cinematic poetry?
Working with Kátia Lund was decisive for the way I understand documentary. She taught me, in practice, that cinema should be a horizontal relationship, not a vertical one. That means the camera doesn’t arrive as an authority, but as a guest. I carry that with me in every project.
In my process, the first movement is always listening: respecting the characters, their time, their contradictions, their realities. Only when trust has been built do I start to think about form — how to frame, how to move the camera, how to compose the scene. There is an order there that I try to protect. If the narrative and the relationships are solid, then the images can be beautiful without losing their ethical weight. The poetry comes not from decorating reality, but from looking at it with care.
- MyMama has framed your arrival as a response to a creative landscape where diversity has regressed. What do you believe is most urgently needed today to expand space and
opportunity for female directors in advertising and entertainment?
I feel that women directors are constantly being asked to prove that we are capable. Even after almost twenty years working in this industry, I still find myself having to “convince” people that I can handle certain projects. Personally, I don’t question that anymore — I know my craft and my trajectory
- but the structures around us still do.
What we urgently need is not more individual resilience, but more structural change. We need more women — and especially more diverse women — in decision-making positions, deciding which stories get told and who directs them. We need trust, budgets and continuity, not only “one chance”. And we need an industry willing to listen to different voices, instead of treating diversity like a temporary trend
- Beyond directing, you’ve documented political and cultural demonstrations as a photographer, with work exhibited at MASP. How does your photographic practice influence your filmmaking, especially in projects centered on memory, identity, and resistance?
I came to photography not from a technical place, but from an urge to register what was happening around me. When I started photographing political and cultural demonstrations in Brazil, it was a way to understand, in my own body, the importance of recording our collective memory. A photograph can become a document — a piece of evidence of a moment that maybe we don’t fully understand while we are living it, but that will be essential to revisit later. Some of these images were later exhibited at MASP (museum), which showed me how far these stories can travel.
This way of looking directly influences my filmmaking. Whether I’m working with protests, women’s football or family archives, I’m always thinking about memory, identity and resistance: what needs to be remembered here, and from whose point of view? Photography taught me to wait for the right gesture, to stay with people, to pay attention to the margins of the frame. In cinema, I try to bring the same attitude — a camera that is present, political and tender at the same time.
