Lula Carvalho was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1977 and visited his first film set when he was very young with his father, the cinematographer and director Walter Carvalho. He first loaded a magazine when he was only ten years old. Soon after, he got involved with the camera department and became a second camera assistant.
Upon finishing high school, Lula was already working as a first camera assistant, and he pulled focus on over nineteen Brazilian features, including City of God (Director: Fernando Meirelles) which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 2003; Behind the Sun (Director: Walter Salles); and Carandiru (Director: Hector Babenco). During this time, Lula also worked on short films, documentaries, music videos and second units as a cinematographer and as a camera operator on features. He also completed cinematography and still photography classes at New York University and the School of Visual Arts in New York.
In 2005, Carvalho shot his first feature as a cinematographer, Incuráveis (Incurables), directed by Gustavo Accioli. He went on to shoot Elite Squad, directed by José Padilha which won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival; A Festa da Menina Morta (The Dead Girl's Feast), directed by Matheus Natchergaele which was an official selection in Un Certain Regard at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival; Feliz Natal (Merry Christmas), directed by Selton Mello; Budapest, directed by Walter Carvalho along with three documentaries.
In 2008, Carvalho was awarded the Best Cinematography Prize by both the Brazilian Cinema Academy and the International Press Correspondents Association in Brazil (ACIE) for Elite Squad. Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within, the follow-up to Elite Squad, was Brazil's Academy Award entry for Best Foreign Film. Carvalho and Padilha's first U.S. studio feature – MGM's big budget reboot of the science fiction classic, Robocop, was released in 2014.
Paramount Pictures
