NYWIFT Blog

By Itu Phalane

Welcome to NYWIFT, Isabel Cama!

Isabel Cama is a Brazilian screenwriter, filmmaker, and editor based in New York City. A recent Bard College graduate with a BA in Film Production, her thesis film, Tiny Dancer, screened at the Albany, Coney Island, and East Village Film Festivals. Isabel’s professional experience spans production roles with Disney Brazil and Ventre Studio, post-production research with Academy Award-nominee Petra Costa, and Operations work at the Woodstock Film Festival.

Currently working as the first Social Video Fellow at BuzzFeed, she is passionate about stories that explore layered female characters and bridging cultures through film and media.

We spoke with Isabel in late summer. She described how she began her film career in New York after graduating from college and shared the creative inspiration she has found through collaborating with like-minded storytellers.

NYWIFT Member Isabel Cama

Can you give our readers a short introduction to who you are?

I’m Isabel, a Brazilian screenwriter, filmmaker, and editor based in NYC. I recently graduated from Bard College with a degree in Film Production, where I broadened my passion for storytelling through writing and editing – particularly stories that explore female characters with their complexities and contradictions.

Besides having written, directed, and edited my own projects over the past four years, my professional experience spans production, writers’ room, and post-production assistant for Disney Brazil, HBO/Max, independent documentaries, and Oscar-nominated Brazilian directors Petra Costa and Carlos Saldanha. At the heart of my work is a desire to tell stories that feel intimate yet universal, and I’m always searching for new ways to challenge myself as a storyteller.

What brought you to NYWIFT?

I was looking for a community of women in film who share my passion for complex, powerful, and character-driven storytelling. Joining the industry after graduating from college can feel intimidating, and I wanted to be part of a space that uplifts and connects. NYWIFT seemed like the ideal place to meet inspiring peers, mentors, and future collaborators while learning more about the industry as I start building my career in New York City.

What motivated you to pursue filmmaking, and in what ways has your Brazilian background shaped the stories you tell?

Being a filmmaker has been my goal ever since I discovered there were people behind the camera making the things I loved watching so much (something I realized at seven, watching Amélie with my mom). It was also another film, Lady Bird, that later solidified my dream of coming to New York to study and pursue a career in film. For better or worse, I have never imagined myself doing anything else.

As for my Brazilian background, I think it deeply shaped how I see and tell stories. Brazilians are known for caring, for being interested and curious about people and their stories. Growing up in that culture sparked my love for storytelling. Not only that, but growing up learning about my country’s past and present, and the millions of different realities and stories that coexist within it, makes me want to tell those stories. I left home to come study and work abroad, always with the certainty that one day, I will return to Brazil with everything I have learned to bring those stories of our people to the screen.

Congratulations on your senior thesis short film, Tiny Dancer, being selected for the Coney Island Film Festival, Albany Film Festival, and East Village Film Festival. Can you share a pivotal moment or challenge you faced while working on it, and how you overcame it?

Thank you! A lot of what Tiny Dancer is about is the struggle of accepting change and understanding that good things can and do come out of what might seem ‘bad’ at first sight. The challenges I faced making it were, in a way, a reflection of the film’s own message. So much planning, scheduling, and anticipating went into being able to shoot the film in its entirety over the course of a weekend.

But meticulous planning is the easier part for me – the challenges I sought to face with Tiny Dancer were the opposite. I wanted to allow for spontaneity to happen, to welcome the unexpected, and make the most of it. And although “going with it” doesn’t come as easily to me as “sticking to the plan” when we’re losing light for a one-shot, I was excited to push myself to embrace the unpredictable. I know the film would not have stood without the attention and determination I put into its preparation, but the truth is that my favorite beats in it happened unexpectedly. 

Isabel presenting Tiny Dancer at the Coney Island Film Festival.

What attracts you to stories focused on women, and how do you approach portraying nuanced female characters?

For me, writing and portraying nuanced female characters starts with the personal as a way to reach the universal. All my favorite stories carry a trace of their maker – sometimes subtly, sometimes more directly. I lean into that when I write. I draw from observation: of myself, of others, of moments and conversations I encounter in the world; I write everything down for future reference. From there, I imagine and reshape, I find authenticity in written and visual details, and often return to the personal to build a character that feels interesting as she is contradictory, real as she is invented.

Isabel with the film crew of Tiny Dancer.

Which project or collaboration has taught you the most so far, and what have you learned from that experience?

One of the most formative experiences for me was working as a cast production assistant on 100 Days, a co-production with Disney Brazil, directed by Academy Award nominee Carlos Saldanha, about Brazilian sailor Amyr Klink. It was my first time on a large-scale feature set, and the stakes couldn’t have been higher, as I was responsible for the schedules, transportation, and personal needs of the entire cast. At first, I was terrified of making a mistake, but I threw myself into the work with the dedication and determination I always try to carry, and I soon realized I had earned the respect and friendship of cast and crew.

Beyond learning the ins and outs of my own role, I found myself spending every spare second observing what everyone around me was doing, and this taught me far more than I could have anticipated. The timing was serendipitous: this experience wrapped just a month before I entered pre-production on my senior thesis, and I know I couldn’t have tackled that project with the same confidence and insight without everything I learned during 100 Days.

Isabel on set of Déjà-vues directed by Eve Ramseyer.

How have your skills in social media and content creation improved your work in feature and documentary projects?

Social media has made me fast, adaptable, and quick-thinking, skills that have translated directly to my work on larger projects. The ability to recognize a moment or a trend and instantly imagine how it can be captured has helped me become a resourceful problem-solver, which comes in handy on set. At Bard, I spent four years covering live events for social platforms, and that experience surprisingly carried over to my work earlier this year as a Production Assistant on set for a documentary series about former U.S. Representative George Santos. Our crew was tiny – just five of us – and outside the courthouse during Santos’ trial, surrounded by journalists, paparazzi, and TV cameras, I instinctively grabbed a camera and started running around to capture raw, urgent moments as they unfolded. I see that the same instinct from creating live content – knowing when to act quickly and creatively – has made me sharper and more flexible in my documentary and feature work.

Isabel Cama on the set of Tiny Dancer in Coney Island.

What new storytelling techniques or technologies are you most excited to explore in your upcoming work?

My next project, a short film titled The Dinner that I plan to expand into a feature, is where I’m most eager to experiment. I want to explore real-time storytelling, unfolding the entire film in one location: the main character’s apartment during a family dinner she is hosting. By keeping the timeline and setting constrained, I’m challenging myself to reveal complex family dynamics not through exposition or direct dialogue, but through subtext, gestures, and the unspoken tensions that emerge in real time.

I want to study, build on, and implement storytelling techniques used in projects with similar explorations, like Succession, 12 Angry Men, The Celebration, and The Bear. I am excited by the intimacy and immediacy this approach can bring, turning a single evening into a layered portrait of relationships simmering beneath the surface.

Connect with Isabel Cama on LinkedIn and her website, and follow her on Instagram at @isabelcama.

(All images courtesy of Isabel Cama.)