About Sphinx Gate Films

Sphinx Gate Films is a production company founded and owned by Melissa Piroutek, a filmmaker with a Bachelor's Degree in Cinema and Audiovisual from Universidade Anhembi Morumbi and several certificates with 100% distinction from the Latin American Film Institute, covering the areas of direction, cinematography, lighting, audio, screenwriting and film production. Movies have always been Melissa's greatest passion, ever since she was just a little girl, and the idea for Sphinx Gate came from a desire to start making her own projects and showing her ideas to the world in her favorite storytelling formats: films and tv shows. The company's name is a direct reference to Michael Ende's epic fantasy book,
The Neverending Story, which was later adapted into a movie of the same name.

The art for the logo was created by my sister, Letícia Piroutek, and the illustration was done by the artist, Jazz Miranda. The idea came specifically from the part where the hero, Atreyu, has to cross the dangerous Sphinx Gate before continuing on his perilous journey.

This passage has different meanings in the book and the movie but both can be applied to the challenges Melissa had to face before finding the courage to create Sphinx Gate. In the book, nobody knows why the sphinxes let some through while killing others but Atreyu decides to risk his life, anyway, and tries to cross them. Once he begins, he starts feeling very afraid, an absolute dread that takes over his entire body, his legs even start to feel heavy from the fear but he continues walking.

He keeps his head down so he doesn't have to look at the sphinxes and proceeds putting one foot in front of the other. When he finally looks up, he realizes he made it past them. In the movie, it is known that the only way to cross the sphinxes without dying is if you have absolutely no doubt about yourself, you must have complete confidence in your own worth.

Atreyu is successful in the crossing, here, as well. Combined, the messages make for a quite inspiring one: Do not doubt yourself and keep moving forward, despite your fear. A very fitting idea for anyone who dares follow their dreams in a world that is constantly trying to convince us that certain things just aren't for us.

Following that motto, Sphinx Gate aims to encourage people and innovate, by bringing them different and inspiring stories, providing opportunities for new talents to arise and opening as many doors as possible.

Stories have the power to heal, to change us from the inside, to make us understand and see the world in ways we could have never thought possible. To quote Saving Mr. Banks,

"That's what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again."