Flavio Alves

Director

Flavio Alves, is a writer, author, screenwriter, and film director. He is best known for his courageous book Toque de Silêncio (Call to Silence), an autobiographical account of his experiences as a homosexual man in the Brazilian navy. In July 1997, to escape the increasingly hostile environment he was personally encountering in Brazil upon the publication of his book, Alves sought political asylum in the United States. His claims of receiving death threats were supported by various human rights organizations, LGBT activists, as well as former São Paulo Mayor, Marta Suplicy. In 1998, with the help of the Immigrants and Refugee Rights Clinic at New York University's School of Law, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agreed to grant Alves political asylum. Shortly thereafter, he attended Columbia University in NYC, where he earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science. After graduating, Alves worked as an assistant to New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY). In 2007, Flavio returned to school to study film production at New York University. Since then, he has written and directed three short films. His most recent completed project, Even in My Dreams, received the Technisphere Award from NYU for Best Student Film, and has been screened at a variety of film festivals all over the world. In 2008, Flavio Alves founded Queens Picture LLC, a New York based film production company. As of 2009, he has begun pre-production on his next short film, The Secret Friend, which is based on the short story of the same title by famous Brazilian author, screenwriter, activist, journalist, and film director, João Silvério Trevisan.

Photo by Michael Seto