The world we see, the inspiring stories we tell.
Denise Zmekhol's career began in São Paulo as a producer and director and now spans the globe from Brazil, Europe, Africa, and Asia to the United States. As an award-winning filmmaker Zmekhol has created innovative multimedia projects and her own independent feature documentaries CHILDREN OF THE AMAZON and the upcoming SKIN OF GLASS. Her directing career emphasizes humor, passion, empathy, clarity and elegance. Zmekhol’s work has been recognized for a strong visual style, story-telling orientation combined with the ability to collaborate with people in four languages — English, Portuguese, French and Spanish.
SKIN OF GLASS
THE GREAT MIRROR OF BRAZIL, IN WHICH EVERYONE MUST LOOK AT THEMSELVES
SKIN OF GLASS is the story of São Paulo’s tallest homeless occupation — a 24-story office tower that is a treasure of mid-20th century architecture, and Denise Zmekhol’s late father’s masterpiece. The film follows her journey to discover her father’s threatened legacy as an artist, as she confronts the imminent possibility of the building’s destruction or irreparable decay.
CHILDREN OF THE AMAZON
WE ARE ALL CHILDREN OF THE AMAZON, BREATHING THE SAME AIR AND SHARING THE SAME FATE
CHILDREN OF THE AMAZON tells the story of struggle and hope to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest and its inhabitants. The film follows Zmekhol as she travels a modern highway deep into the Amazon, in search of the indigenous children she photographed fifteen years earlier.
TRADING BOWS AND ARROWS FOR LAPTOPS
Produced and Directed by Denise Zmekhol
In 2008, Denise Zmekhol returned to the Amazon to film with the Surui tribe again — this time documenting its unique collaboration with Google Earth Outreach. The partnership, a result of Chief Almir Surui’s request that Google help raise visibility for his tribe, involves training the Surui people to use internet technology to protect their forest, preserve their culture and empower their people.
CLIENT | GOOGLE
FROM THE GROUND TO THE CLOUD
Produced and Directed by Denise Zmekhol
More than sixty years ago Jane Goodall set out to study the wild chimpanzees of Tanzania with little more than a pair of second-hand binoculars, pencils and a notebook. Today she has upgraded the tools of the trade. FROM THE GROUND TO THE CLOUD, a beautifully crafted short documentary, showcases a collaboration between the Jane Goodall Institute, Google Earth Outreach and local villagers to monitor the health of chimpanzee habitats using mobile, satellite and cloud-based mapping technologies.
CLIENT | GOOGLE AND THE JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE
A TRIBUTE TO FRANK MOORE
A Film by Rebecca Moore and Denise Zmekhol
Frank Moore was a remarkable artist and activist whose life was cut short by AIDS. In figurative paintings filled with fantastic and symbolic imagery, Moore addressed themes drawn from American visual culture, the state of the health care industry and his personal life. In this short documentary produced in tribute to his life, Moore himself speaks with his trademark blend of humor and insight, explicating the meaning of his paintings, the story of the red ribbon and what motivated him to let his “little light shine” for the benefit of all.
CLIENT | REBECCA MOORE
