About us

Hermes Leal

PhD in Fiction Narrative, Hermes Leal is a writer, with seven books published, explorer and documentarist. He is a journalist, graduated from UFG, Master in Cinema, with a specialization in Screenplay by ECA / USP, and a Doctor of Letters, with a specialization in Linguistics and Semiotics of Passions, by FFLCH / USP.

The author specialized in narrative theory after three decades of research in fiction, and had his studies published by Perspectiva, in 2017, in the famous Coleção Estudos, with the title “The Passions in the Narrative – The Construction of the Cinema Script” , in the same collection in which the world’s greatest thinkers, such as Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, were released in Brazil. The importance of the research was due to its application in the creation of characters based on their passions and emotions, in a new science of knowledge, the Semiotics of Passions, recently discovered in France.

In the work, released in 2023, “The Sense of Passions – Semiotic Theory of Narrative and Fiction”, the author offers writers a theoretical structure of the action and emotion of the characters, demonstrating its perfect application in the scripts and characters in films such as “Roma”, “ Joker” and “Parasite” and in series like “Game of Thrones”.

A good storyteller, he is the author of the novel “Before the Dream Ends” (Editorial Generation, 2016), about a young man fleeing the Amazon in the dark times of the Cold War, which will be filmed under the direction of award-winning filmmaker Lírio Ferreira and distributed from O2 Play. His first novel, “I’m Fuck!”, released in 1997 and re-released in 2006, with the title “Knife in the Throat”, generated controversy by showing a generation of teenagers in the 1990s, who could do anything but beat AIDS.

Hermes is an explorer, his adventures are always authentic in places little or never explored. He is the author of “Quilombo – An Adventure in the Bay of Souls” (1995) and of the first biography of the adventurer who inspired Indiana Jones, “The Enigma of Colonel Fawcett” (Geração Editorial, 4th edition, 2008), about the English hunter of lost cities in Brazil. The book became a small bestseller, with five printed editions, and tells the adventure of Fawcett and the author himself in search of clues about his mysterious disappearance.

He worked for several open TV channels, is a producer, screenwriter and director of important TV series, such as “Contemporary Thought” (Curta! channel and Vivo Play, Claro TV, Amazon Prime Video and Looke), based on Café Filosófico, on TV Cultura. His series “Filmmakers”, which premiered in 2017 on the Prime Box Brazil channel, aired in 2020/2021 on the Curta! and A&E and available on Vivo Play and Looke, it received, in 2020, the ProAC award from the government of SP, through the Aldir Blanc Act, to develop its 2nd season. As well as the documentary feature “The Image of Brazil”, which was also awarded the same award.

He is a producer of award-winning films, such as “Age of Water”, by Orlando Senna – famous director of “Iracema – An Amazonian Transa” (1980) -, which participated in more than 20 festivals in Brazil and abroad, elected the best film of the Cine del Agua, in Argentina, on the issue of the water crisis in the Amazon. The film was shown on Amazon Prime Video and is available on Vivo Play, Claro TV and Pluto. He is the creator and screenwriter of the series “Amazon Fashion”, shown on the Fashion TV channel and available on Amazon Prime Video and on the Arte 1 channel, which deals with fashion based on sustainable products in the Amazon.

He launched the documentaries “Araguaia” (Vivo Play, Claro TV, Looke), about the guerrilla that mobilized the largest troops in Brazil since the Second World War, and “Law and Fear” (Vivo Play, Claro TV, Looke and Sky Play), about the fear of losing democratic achievements in the face of Bolsonaro’s election in 2018.

He is currently co-producing the feature “Red”, a new film by Orlando Senna, a production by Montanha Cinematográfica, by Alice de Andrade, in an international co-production with Circular Media, from Uruguay, and has just finalized the creation and script of his first series of fiction, “Waves”.

A television professional, with a career that started in the 1990s, he worked as a TV director at Rede Manchete, where he was for ten years and created the first police reality show in Brazil, “Na Rota do Crime” (On the Path of Crime), audience champion for years. He also acted in journalism for SBT, Rede TV and Record.