Biography
Altenir Silva: Playwright and Screenwriter. Bachelor’s in English Literature, Estácio - RJ.
Great-grandson of German-Jewish and Portuguese, he began his film studies in 1983 at Cinemateca of Curitiba, Brazil. The same year he wrote and directed the short film "O Açougueiro do Norte contra o Cineasta Voador" (The Flying Filmmaker) among several other short films.
In 2026, published the e-book Chicken Bone: and Other New York Flash-Stories on Amazon Kindle.
His plays have been staged in the United States and England, including: She Loves Pepsi, He Drinks Coca-Cola; Friendship; The Fall of Narcissus, among others. The play Friendship was included in the anthology One Minute Plays: A Practical Guide to Tiny Theatre, published by Routledge Publishing; England, 2017. It is part of the collection at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, USA.
In 2019, he won the Best Screenplay Award at the Prisma International Film Awards in Rome, Italy, for the script The Sunrise Man (co-written with Ben Fiore). This screenplay was also a Top Finalist at the 2017 Hollywood Hills Screenplay Awards in California, USA.
In 2014, he received the Excellence Award at the Shakespeare in The Burg Theater Festival in Middleburg, VA (USA), for the play The Idea.
In Brazil, he worked as a writer-screenwriter for Rede Globo programs such as: Você Decide (record holder for submitted plots), A Turma do Didi, Sai de Baixo, and Vídeo Show. As a contributing screenwriter for Record TV, he worked on the telenovelas: A Escrava Isaura, Prova de Amor, Caminhos do Coração, Os Mutantes, Promessas de Amor, Rebelde, and Os Dez Mandamentos, as well as the series: A Rainha Ester, Rei Davi, and José do Egito. For CNT/PR, he created the police series Pista Dupla and wrote for various variety shows.
In film, he worked as a screenwriter and director for short films and contributed to several feature films, including O Sal da Terra, Conexão Japão, Belarmino e Gabriela, Curitiba Zero Grau, and the box-office hit Os Dez Mandamentos - O Filme.
He has taken the following online courses: Shakespeare’s Life and Work with Stephen Greenblatt at Harvard University (2020); The Ten Minute Play Workshop with Jen Whiting at Princeton University (2012). In-person courses include: Master Class Story with John Truby in New York (2013); and Robert McKee’s Story Brazil in São Paulo (2010).
Since 2020, he has been writing fiction for Scene4 Magazine, a monthly publication based in Seattle, WA, USA.
Altenir and Celia are married and parents of Neo Rodrigues Kurpiel Silva.
