BIO
Michele Lavalle is a Brazilian-Portuguese filmmaker, director, screenwriter and producer with 20 years in film and television. She holds a degree in Cinema (Social Communication) and a postgraduate degree in Audiovisual Project and Business Management, both from FAAP in São Paulo.
She began her career at leading Brazilian production companies, including Gullane, Glaz, O2, Conspiração and Casablanca/Teleimage, working on features, shorts, telenovelas, TV series and commercials as assistant director, editor, finishing artist and executive producer, among other roles.
Her first film as a director, the documentary Quanto mais Manga, melhor (2007), about the director Carlos Manga, was selected for more than 15 international film festivals.
From 2009 to 2017 she was part of the directing team at TV Record, where she directed five telenovelas, including Os Dez Mandamentos, Escrava Mãe, A Terra Prometida and Vitória, which she directed from start to finish. The productions shot on locations such as the Atacama Desert in Chile, farms in Campinas, and backlot towns and studios in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Several were later licensed to Netflix and other platforms and exported to more than 20 countries.
In 2018 Conspiração Filmes hired her to direct four seasons of the hit series Detetives do Prédio Azul (DPA), produced by Conspiração Filmes and Globo, first shown on Gloob and now on Globoplay. Seasons 13 and 14 were finalists for Best Brazilian Fiction Series (Paid TV / OTT) at the Grande Prêmio do Cinema Brasileiro, awarded by the Brazilian Academy of Cinema (2020 and 2021). She directed 89 episodes of about 30 minutes each.
At both Record and Gloob she followed each production from pre-production, script readings, casting and location scouting through post-production: cut approval, sound, effects, colour, music and dubbing, often delivering finished episodes to the channel.
In 2019 she was selected for Selo ELAS, a programme that supports features directed by women, with Baile da Saudade. She was then invited to join the series Direito de Mulher, about violence against women, as writer and general director. Produced by Resistência, the series received ProAc development funding, and its feature version was taken by Creative SP to the Marché du Film in Cannes in 2022.
Since moving to Portugal in 2021 she completed a postgraduate degree (2024), wrote two episodes of Direito de Mulher, a series on domestic violence, and developed several original projects, including the documentary Entre versos e liberdade, about the poet Manuel Alegre, which she directs, writes and produces. It premieres in May 2027.
She is the founder and CEO of RIA Produções Audiovisuais, which develops work centred on women's and social themes. In 2024 she was a guest professor at FAAP, teaching a course she created: “Creative production in audiovisual drama: where artistic direction meets production.”
Contato
Email · Phone
michelelavalle@gmail.com · +351 928 040 615
Based in
São Paulo, Brasil / Lisboa, Portugal