Wara
Sivan Noam Shimon
2025
Brazil, France
Portuguese
fiction
women | fantastic
14 minutes
Cinema Inflamável & DW
There was a time when a man of limitless powers demanded descendants. When one of his victims released the beast within her, an avenging force of myth came galloping over the mangrove waters...
WARA
Wara is a director screenwriter specialized in Fiction Directing at the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Tv (Cuba) and graduated in Film and Audiovisual Studies from Universidade Federal do Ceará. Soberane, their short film, won the Pardino D'oro at Locarno. Who gave you a name? was nominated for best film at FESSALP. The feature project Quem deu de nome à Terra? won TFL Next, Pop Up Film Residence award and Cinéma en Devélopmment at BrLab. Wara is currently developing the Âmbar Project: a series of audiovisual works that, starting from the perspective of a racialized, queer body, in a foreign and/or inhospitable environment, searches for belonging or embraces the "non-place" as their true space and starting point, exploring the science fiction genre.
SIVAN NOAM SHIMON
Sivan Noam Shimon is a writer, director and actress, graduate of Steve Tisch School of Film and TV at Tel-Aviv University, with a bachelor’s degree in screenwriting and a master’s degree in directing. Her short film Wake Up Call won several film festivals, among them Best Original Story in Toronto, Best Short Film in Mexico, and more. For her leading role in the film Blush, she won Best Actress Award at Haifa IFF. She played in the American film Ma Belle, My Beauty, Audience award at Sundance FF. Sivan is a programmer at the Israeli LGBTQIA TLVFest and is teaching screenwriting at Minshar Art College.
WARA
1. Essa Paixão (2013, Documentário)
2. Como o Vento (2014, Ficção)
3. Encantaría (2015, Documentário)
4. Aquele Céu de Azul-Petróleo (2016, Ficção)
5. Atalanta (2017, Experimental)
6. Nível do Ar (2019, Ficção)
7. Está todo calmo afuera (2019, Híbrido)
8. Quem te deu nome? (2021, Documentário)
9. Mulheres Árvore (2022, Híbrido)
10. Soberane (2022, Ficção)
11. A Fera do Mangue (2025, Ficção)
SIVAN NOAM SHIMON
Wake Up Call (2020, short film)
WARA
Taking part in the Directors Factory was not an easy process for Wara, as they had never cowritten or codirected before — and this project was set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. They consider themself very fortunate to have teamed up with writer director Sivan Shimon, with whom they share similar cinematic sensibilities, despite their very different origins and backgrounds.
From the early stages of writing and development, Wara and Sivan found common ground in their desire to engage with a Brazilian mythology and reinterpret it. They chose the traditional Mula sem cabeça (Headless Mule) myth as the foundation for Fera do mangue. For Wara, this was a magical and powerful creative journey.
They and their codirector reappropriated this old Spanish colonial myth and reimagined it through a new lens — a shared perspective that gave rise to a different kind of story. In Wara’s view, the result is a new myth that evokes female desire and its transformation.
SIVAN NOAM SHIMON
The Factory experience was unique for Sivan Noam Shimon. She felt it was a huge privilege to work with such talented people; first and foremost, her brilliant co-director Wara, and also the production team, actors, crew, and postproduction team. The essence of the project was to approach a different culture and co-create with a director she hadn’t met before. It was challenging, and Sivan admits she felt afraid at first. But shared that luckily, she was teamed with Wara, who became a very close friend.
From the very first moment, Sivan and Wara chose to be partners, making every artistic decision together. What Wara didn’t like was out of the picture, and vice versa. Their connection felt organic, and it was a great blessing for Sivan to have someone to lean on during the process. She ended up making a film completely different from what she usually does. And yet, it is completely Sivan, completely both of them.
Sivan is very grateful for the opportunity to broaden her artistic and cultural horizons.
