After calling Emergency saying she doesn’t remember where she is, a woman roams through the São Paulo night in search of fragments of her memory, as reality and recollection merge in a whirlwind of confusion and fear.
Rodrigo Pires is a São Paulo–based filmmaker, writer, art director, and photographer. He holds degrees in Film Directing (Academia Internacional de Cinema) and Photography (SENAC) and is currently specializing in Screenwriting (SENAC).
Rodrigo has been working in film since 2016. His photographic work has been exhibited in group shows such as Tempo (Galeria Plexi, 2019) and the Tiradentes Photography Festival Projection (2024). In 2020, he released the independent zine Filmes Que Nunca Existirão Vol. 1, blending experimental analog photography with literary poetry.
Rodrigo served as assistant director for the short film A Natureza (The Nature, Rodrigo Ribeyro), selected for the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival 2024. He was also the production designer for the independent short film and manifesto Ode Ao Skate (2026).
He has worked as an art assistant, set decorator, and prop master for several music videos, TV commercials, short films, and other audiovisual productions, especially while working at famous MTV-born video production company and clothing brand Bolovo Productions®. Rodrigo has been involved in works with Havana Club, Jeep, McDonald’s, Chevrolet, Jägermeister, Brazilian telecommunication giant Vivo, etc.
In 2025, he worked in content production and still photography for Boiler Hub, a São Paulo–based group of film production companies specialized in advertising and commercials. In 2026, he will release his first short film, Film Noir, for which he is credited with production, screenwriting, direction, and additional editing.
Film Noir started as an advertisement for a film developing Laboratory. The client wanted a clip that could show the latitude and the possibilities of developing and scanning super 8 film in their store. I was invited because of my experience in film photography and writing. The plot came from a short story I wrote in college, under the influence of lots of Brazilian cinema marginal, French neo-noirs, Italian giallos, American thrillers, etc. The research and pre-production of the short film took about 10 months, which led the client to quit.
The film explores the unfortunately timeless story of a woman in danger. FILM NOIR is a night film shot on Super 8 Kodak Film on the streets of São Paulo with absolutely no funding other than a raffle I put together selling some photography equipment, which paid for the film rolls and processing. Brazilian motion picture film supplier and only official Kodak re-seller Runner Filmes has supported the film paying for the shipping of the rolls. The rest was paid from my personal account, including a symbolic fee of R$200 per member of the crew.
I wanted to make FILM NOIR my first film because it is a love letter to independent filmmaking and genre films. It also brings a narrative I wish was more popular, empowering women, showing them as the noirs used to – as dangerous.
The film comes forward in a time of feminist rebellion against a wave of so-called passionate crime feminicides in Brazil. The movement was named Mulheres Vivas (Alive Women).
It also refflects on the crime of roofying (date rape drug), sexual abuse and violence, crimes of which Ms. Gisele Pelicot was an emblemmatic victim and became a hero as she shared her story with the world. In November 2024 a Telegram ‘rape chat groups’ with up to 70k members was uncovered in Europe, where men would exchange information on how to drug women, where to buy the drugs, etc. This was only in one group that happened to be discovered. Women and minorities are still in danger in the year 2026. What is expected for the next generations to come in a time of incels, redpills, 4chan, MAGA (let’s not forget “your body my choice” going viral when Trump was reelected)?
Andrea Dworkin once wrote: “Women must harden their hearts, and learn to kill”. As women in social media use to say here, “da cadeia, você sai. Do caixão, não.” (You can get out of jail but you can’t get out of a coffin.)
The film is dedicated to Gisele Pelicot and all victims of abuse of any kind.
