Amazonas Film Festival

John MC Tiernan
Director, Producer & Screenwriter
(United States)

Born in Albany, New York, John McTiernan graduated from State University of New York and attended the Julliard School. He later earned a Master of Fine Arts from AFI in Los Angeles, where he is a Fellow. A leading craftsman of dynamic, large-scale Hollywood movies, he first made his mark as a prolific writer and director of commercials. His first feature, "Nomads” (1986), a supernatural thriller about a French anthropologist played by Pierce Brosnan, was well received at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival and directly led to his first major studio action film, "Predator" (1987). The film pitted a commando team lead by Arnold Schwarzenegger against an invisible alien enemy in a situation that was seen as a Vietnam allegory. "Predator" firmly established John McTiernan's Hollywood bona fides.

He indeed followed up in a big way with his next feature, "Die Hard" (1988) starring Bruce Willis and voted the greatest action movie of all time.

He then completed his initial Hollywood trifecta with an adaptation of Tom Clancy's best-selling Cold War novel, "The Hunt for Red October" (1990), starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin. In 1992, he reunited with Sean Connery for "Medicine Man", a film about a doctor who tries to find a cure for cancer in the Brazilian rain forest. His next film, "The Last Action Hero" (1993), considered an underrated gem, starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as an action movie hero trying to deal with a real-life boy stuck inside his action movie.

Having tried something different, John McTiernan reverted to tried-and-true escapist formula with "Die Hard with a Vengeance" (1995). He next wrote and directed "The 13th Warrior" (1999), starring Antonio Banderas and based on Michael Crichton's 1976 novel, Eaters of the Dead. In 1999, he moved on to helm the remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair") which pitted Pierce Brosnan as a millionaire art thief and Rene Russo as an insurance investigator hot on his trail.

John McTiernan’s next projects included “Rollerball” (2002), a Norman Jewison remake of an action sport with a violent mix of roller derby, and “Basic” (2003) starring Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, a thriller about the mysterious death of a hated Army Ranger commander and several of his men that are investigated by one of his former subordinates.

Lucia Murat
Director, Screenwriter, Producer
(Rio de Janeiro – Brazil)

Her first feature film, the semi-documentary ‘Good to see you are alive’ (Que bom te ver viva -1988), debuted internationally at the Toronto Film Festival and showed a movie director dedicated to political and feminine issues. In this film there are testimonials from women tortured during the military dictatorship intertwined with fictional scenes starring Irene Ravache. Among many awards, the film was named best film of the official jury, the popular jury and of the critics in the Brasilia Festival of 1989. Her Political concern comes back with ‘Sweet powers’ (Doces poderes - 1996), this time from the point of view of marketing campaigns in electoral propagandas. The film premiered in 1997 at the Sundance Film Festival and in the same year, it was also exhibited at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2000 she launched ‘Brave Brazilian People’ (Brava Gente Brasileira), which is about the relationship between settlers and Indigenous people that lived in the interior of Brazil. In 2003 she filmed ‘Almost two brothers’ (Quase dois irmãos) - a political drama about the conflict between the middle class and the slum in three different ages and situations - that was awarded many times, including the best director and best film by the Latin American Film Festival FIPRESCI Rio-2004 , Best Film at the First Amazonas Film Festival and best film at the Festival de Mar del Plata-2005. In Rio Festival, 2005, she debuted the documentary ‘The foreign eye’ (O olhar estrangeiro), and in the 2007 edition, ‘Tide’ (Maré), our love story, a co-production Brazil-France. In 2008, ‘Tide’ was selected to the Prospect showcase of the Berlin Film Festival. She is currently working on two projects: a documentary about the Indigenous people kadiwéu (with whom he worked in ‘Brava Gente Brasileira’) and the fiction ‘Lounge of hope’(Sala de espera), a balance of the generation of 68.

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