Natalia Leite

Biography

Natalia Leite is a Brazilian writer and director. She is most known for directing the indie hit film M.F.A., a feminist rape-revenge thriller that spurred debates at the start of the #MeToo movement.

Her feature film M.F.A., starring Francesca Eastwood, premiered at SXSW 2017 and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize and a Game Changer Award. A thriller centered around rape crimes in a college campus, the film fueled discussions at the start of the #MeToo movement. Her directorial debut Bare, starring Dianna Agron, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and was released by IFC Films and Paramount Pictures.

Natalia has also created original content for Vice TV, immersing herself in different subcultures — among a group of homeless train-hoppers in the mid-west and as a truck-stop stripper in New Mexico — as a form of first-person investigative journalism.

Natalia wrote/directed the short film Kiki & the Mxfits for 5050by2020, a branch of the Time’s Up movement. Expanding the conversation beyond her films, Natalia discusses identity, sexuality, and representation in op-eds for TalkHouse and other publications. She is a recipient of the Kodak Grant Award and the Tribeca Film Institute Grant.

In an 2018 interview with Hooligan Mag she said:

“Being pegged as queer is both a blessing and a curse, but mostly a blessing. It’s a blessing because you get to be automatically embedded [and] associated with a network of the most creative thinkers, artists, and souls who all want to work together and help each other. On the other hand, even though I am proud to be gay and proud to be a woman, it’s sometimes annoying to be segregated and categorized as such, rather than just labeled a filmmaker.”