Selton Mello is a Brazilian actor, director, and screenwriter, who began his career in television during his childhood. Today, he is one of Brazil's most prominent and critically acclaimed artists, with an extensive body of work in theater, cinema, and other creative fronts.
Mello has played leading roles in several films, including To the Left of the Father, Lisbela and the Prisoner, A Dog's Will, Drained, My Name Ain't Johnny, and Four Days in September, which was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Language Film in 1997.
For his work in To the Left of the Father, Mello won several awards, including Best Actor at the Habana Film Festival in Cuba, the Brasília International Film Festival in Brazil, the Lleida Latin-American Film Festival in Spain, and the Lima Latin-American Film Festival in Peru. He also won the Cinema Brazil Grand Prize for both Lisbela and the Prisoner and My Name Ain't Johnny.
Mello has also won several awards for his work as a director. His first short film, When the Time Falls, was selected for competitive screenings at several film festivals, and his feature-length film, December, was applauded by critics and won more than 20 awards at various film festivals.
In addition to his work as an actor and director, Mello has also worked as a screenwriter and editor. He co-directed the TV series The Invisible Woman, which won an International Emmy Award in 2012 for Best TV Comedy. He also directed Sessão de Terapia, the Brazilian version of In Treatment.
Mello's second feature film, The Clown, was released in 2011 and achieved the milestone of 1.5 million viewers. The film earned high marks from critics and won over 40 awards in Brazil and worldwide, including Best Director at the APCA and the 38th SESC Film Fest.
The Clown won the Cinema Brazil Grand Prize in 2012 and was chosen to represent Brazil in the selection of Best Foreign Language Film nominees for The Oscars. In 2017, Mello released his third feature-length film, The Movie of My Life, which was based on A Distant Father by prize-winning Chilean novelist Antonio Skármeta.
Mello currently stars in the Netflix series The Mechanism, created and directed by José Padilha.
