Biography:Flavio Pimenta Alves is a writer, screenwriter, and film director resident in America since 1998. His movies consistently feature elderly characters as protagonists. Alves was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and served the Brazilian navy for several years before coming to America in 1997. He was granted political asylum in the United States in 1998 based on political opinion and sexual orientation after he wrote the book, Toque de Silêncio ("Call to Silence", 1997), describing his life as a gay man in the Brazilian navy.