Award-winning Brazilian director Juliana Curi has returned to the U.S. market, rejoining Honor Society x MacGuffin with an expanded creative vision shaped by years of global work across film, culture, and technology.
A longtime Honor Society x MacGuffin collaborator, Curi is known for blending cinematic craft with purpose-driven storytelling. Her work for U.S. and global brands, including Coca-Cola, Unilever, Walgreens, No.7, and Nestlé, is defined by cultural resonance, emotional precision, and a visual ambition that travels easily across borders.
In recent years, Curi has spent extensive time developing international projects, deepening a distinctly multicultural perspective that now defines her voice. That evolution culminated in her feature-length directorial debut, Uýra – The Rising Forest, shot in the Amazon. The film became a defining milestone in her career, proving that stories rooted in specificity can connect powerfully on a global scale.
Uýra has screened at major cultural institutions including the Barbican in London, BAM in Brooklyn, Fondazione Prada in Milan, and the DGA Theater in Los Angeles. It earned 17 awards worldwide, including a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Outstanding Documentary, an LA Outfest Special Programming Award win, and the London Film Week Jury Prize. Seeing a story born in the Amazon resonate with audiences from New York to Geneva reaffirmed Curi’s creative north star: work that is emotionally truthful, culturally grounded, and globally relevant.
That experience reshaped her approach to branded storytelling. Directing Uýra deepened her sense of narrative architecture and emotional pacing, challenging the long-standing assumption that socially driven stories can’t also be cinematic, premium, and visually ambitious. The film proved otherwise, and that philosophy now carries directly into her commercial work.
Curi brought those insights to Unilever in 2024, directing The Dove Code in close collaboration with Droga5 Brazil. The campaign earned accolades from Cannes Lions, Clio Awards, The One Show, and The Shorty Awards. Centered on AI and bias, the work demonstrated that artificial intelligence cannot escape the human data it’s trained on.
Rather than manipulating prompts to force a message, the campaign allowed AI’s inherited stereotypes to surface on their own. The result was a rare intersection of conceptual rigor, restraint, and cultural impact.
“Juliana’s post-feature global growth and experience working with AI have given her fresh and powerful perspectives that she’s now bringing back to the U.S. market,” said Megan Kelly, Founder and Managing Partner of Honor Society. “That insight will strengthen Honor Society’s creative offering in a meaningful way.”
For Curi, the return feels both natural and energizing. “Coming back to Honor Society feels like coming home,” she said. “It’s where I built some of my earliest work in the U.S., and now I’m returning with a wider global perspective and a sharper creative voice.”
Most recently, Curi was selected for the Directors Guild of America’s prestigious 2024 mentorship program in Los Angeles, which supports and develops the next generation of Hollywood storytellers.
With her return to Honor Society x MacGuffin, Curi brings a rare blend of cinematic discipline, cultural intelligence, and technological fluency, positioning her as a director uniquely suited for brands navigating an increasingly complex creative landscape.
View her reel HERE. Reel 360 News wishes Juliana the best on her return to Honor Society x MacGuffin.
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