Gabriel Martins

Gabriel Martins (born December 22, 1987) is a Brazilian filmmaker, screenwriter, film editor and cinematographer, known for his work at Filmes de Plástico, the company he co-founded back in 2009 with André Novais Oliveira, Maurilio Martins, and Thiago Macêdo Correia. His first feature film, IN THE HEART OF THE WORLD, co-directed with Maurilio Martins, premiered in 2019, at Rotterdam’s Tiger Competition, later being screened in several film festivals and released theatrically in some countries, like France, to widespread critical acclaim. Between his short films are the 2017 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight entry NADA and Clermont-Ferrand’s selected DONA SÔNIA PEDIU UMA ARMA PARA SEU VIZINHO ALCIDES. He was part of Rotterdam’s Special Program “Soul in the Eye”, where he also gave a master class. Gabriel wrote Brazilian successful films, like the box-office hit ALEMÃO, and is currently developing a series for Amazon. MARS ONE is his second feature, the first one he directed solo.

Director’s statement

“When I was 9 years old in a drawing, I portrayed my idea of a film set and I’m sitting in the director’s chair, with my name on it. The small balloon coming out of my head says: I realized my dream! I have wanted to be a filmmaker since before this drawing. It was my only dream. I’m not sure if I knew it wasn’t a very realistic dream for a Black boy, born and raised in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of an industrial city in Brazil where there were no movie theaters, much less the possibility of having a filmmaking career. Nonetheless, my unlikely dream became reality.
In the first scene of my sophomore film MARS ONE, Deivid, the young boy from the Martins family, is sitting in his backyard looking at the stars. He wonders, “What’s out there?” This house is located very close to the one where I was born, and where my parents live to this day. At the same time, we can hear fireworks and shouts celebrating the election of Jair Bolsonaro. I believe this contrast enunciated that this is a film about possibilities: what can a Black family in the Brazil of today be? MARS ONE is not an autobiographical film, but Deivid and I have a lot in common: we dared to dream dreams that were not made for people like us.
MARS ONE was developed during a very challenging time for Brazil, between 2015 and 2018, when there were several abrupt changes in the social and political landscape. Various structural movements in Brazil and the wider world made us confront what we already knew about gender, race, economics, and many other aspects of society; in my opinion, most films and TV shows are just beginning to grapple with these issues. We produced the film through a fund for Black directors and that always brought me a responsibility to speak from the heart, with honesty and understanding that this film could be a strong representation of a culture that I’m part of. When I got this opportunity, I felt, despite the weight on my shoulders, a very strong sense of joy because of how cinema can build dreams. It is a film, after all, about looking up.“