Criando Pontes began as a documentary project.

The original idea was to capture and edit a filmed documentary based on four women’s stories written in a poetic, theatrical and testimonial language. When the production timeline and budget made that format unfeasible, I proposed a new creative direction: transforming the script into an AI-assisted animated short film.

The goal was not to use AI as a shortcut, but as a way to make the project possible without losing emotional depth, symbolism or narrative intention.

I led the creative transformation of the project.

My work included:

Creative concept development Script adaptation for audiovisual structure AI visual direction AI image generation direction AI animation direction Visual research and references Character and scene consistency Emotional pacing Video editing Final narrative flow

I worked in dialogue with the general direction of Luc Cavalheiro and the chronicles written by Letícia de Assis, shaping the visual and emotional language of the film from concept to final edit.

The project had two main challenges.

The first was practical: the film needed to be completed in only two months, with limited time and budget.

The second was creative: the stories carried sensitive themes such as stigma, silence, body, memory, judgment, desire, survival and self-reclamation. The visual language needed to be poetic and symbolic, but never decorative. It had to support the weight of the narratives without reducing the characters to suffering.

At the same time, the production happened during a fast-moving moment for AI tools. New features and versions were released while the film was being made, including improvements in image and video generation. As a result, the visual quality evolved throughout the process.

Instead of hiding that, I used it as part of the creative strategy. Each story was given its own visual universe, so the difference between chapters became intentional rather than accidental.

The central visual metaphor of the film is a house made of sand in the middle of the desert.

The house represents a fragile structure built from fear, judgment and silence.

Inside the house, there is a mirror.

The mirror works as a portal. It is how we enter each woman’s story, and it is also how we return at the end. When the house collapses, the film reaches its central idea: breaking stigma, undoing silence and opening space for other narratives.

Each story was designed with its own material, atmosphere and emotional texture.

The film does not use one single illustration style from beginning to end. Instead, each chapter has a visual language connected to the inner world of its character.

This decision helped turn the limitations of the AI process into a creative asset.

Different tools, different generations and different animation qualities became part of the film’s structure: four women, four visual territories, one shared emotional arc.

Flor’s story was built with a soft digital watercolor language.

Her world is intimate, warm and cinematic. The bedroom, the mirror, the close framing and the delicate tones create a sense of emotional withdrawal.

Flor represents a woman slowly disappearing in order to fit inside someone else’s idea of love.

The visual direction uses softness as contrast. The images look delicate, but what they reveal is the violence of erasure.

Jacira’s chapter moves into an earthy visual language, close to watercolor mixed with digital gouache.

Ochres, oranges and dry textures evoke landscape, faith, time and community judgment. Her world feels still, heavy and suspended.

Jacira represents the kind of silence that is built socially: the silence created by fear, shame and the gaze of others.

Her imagery is more solid and quiet, as if the fear around her had become part of the landscape.

Lena’s visual universe becomes more organic, textured and fluid.

After Jacira’s dryness, water appears as movement. Washed greens, blues, river light and humid textures create a sense of passage, continuity and survival.

Lena is not untouched by pain, but she keeps moving.

Her chapter uses water as a visual metaphor for what continues, even after rupture.

Marina breaks away from the softer watercolor logic of the previous chapters.

Her story enters a denser, more theatrical digital painting style, closer to oil and acrylic. Deep blacks, intense reds, skin tones, stage lighting and frontal composition create a visual manifesto.

Marina’s story speaks about body, stigma, desire, pleasure and self-worth.

The creative direction avoids fragility. Marina is not shown as a diminished body. She is built as presence: sensual, political, alive and whole.

In her chapter, the body stops asking for permission and starts occupying the world.

AI was used for image generation and animation, but it was never the concept of the film.

The concept was human.

The work was in directing the tools: selecting references, testing prompts, comparing outputs, refining characters, controlling atmosphere, preserving emotional coherence and deciding which images could actually serve the story.

One of the biggest challenges was consistency. Working with multiple characters, different scenes and evolving AI tools required constant adjustment. I had to create my own ways to guide the outputs, maintain visual direction and keep each story coherent.

The process was less about generating beautiful images and more about making the right images for the narrative.

Criando Pontes became a complete AI-assisted animated short film built in just two months.

The project transformed a production limitation into a new creative format and gave each story a symbolic visual identity.

The result is a film that connects theater, chronicle, testimony, illustration, animation and AI-assisted imagery through a human-led creative direction.

Each woman has her own visual territory:

Flor is mirror and room. Jacira is earth and window. Lena is water and crossing. Marina is body and stage.

Together, they return to the same idea:

What silence holds, art can carry across.

A limited timeline became the starting point for a new creative solution.

AI made the project possible, but human direction gave it meaning.

The changing quality of AI tools became part of the film’s visual structure.

Each chapter was built as its own symbolic world.

The final film proves that AI can support sensitive, poetic and emotionally specific storytelling when guided by strong creative direction.