Mautner was born in Rio de Janeiro on May 24, 1975. She is the only daughter of famous singer and writer Jorge Mautner and historian Ruth Mendes, and is of Austrian-Jewish and Yugoslav descent on her father's side. She initially debuted as an actress, portraying Paula in the 1991–92 telenovelaVamp, and also appeared in an episode of the TV series Você Decide, but later abandoned the acting career to become involved in directing. She debuted as assistant director in the first season of the long-running soap operaMalhação in 1995, but wouldn't direct her first telenovela until O Cravo e a Rosa from 2000. In 2012, Mautner and Ricardo Waddington won the Prêmio Contigo! de TV, in the category "Best Director", for Cordel Encantado. After her work in the successful Avenida Brasil which was nominated to the International Emmy Award for Best Telenovela, and Joia Rara, she was promoted to Rede Globo's art director in 2014. On an interview to Época magazine from September 15, 2016, she stated that after she ended work on her most recent telenovela, A Regra do Jogo, which was nominated to the International Emmy Award for Best Telenovela, she would take a temporary break from TV in order to begin work on her first full-length film, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Gambler. It will enter pre-production in 2017, after she finds a screenwriter and an appropriate actor for the leading role, and shooting will begin in Argentina in 2018. On June 26, 2017, she expressed her desire to direct a film adaptation of Raphael Montes' 2014 thriller novelDias Perfeitos. She was originally slated to return to television in 2018, to direct the upcomingtelenovelaÓrfãos da Terra, by Duca Rachid and Thelma Guedes, who also wrote Joia Rara; however, this did not come to fruition. On December 19, 2016, it was reported that she began work on a miniseries based on Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, scheduled to be broadcast in 2018 by Rede Globo; Caio Blat and Carolina Dieckmann are being eyed to star. In 2017 she was chosen to direct the biographical miniseries Assédio, written by Maria Camargo and inspired by the non-fiction bookA Clínica, by Vicente Vilardaga, about the life and crimes of rapist and former physician Roger Abdelmassih, who was portrayed by Antonio Calloni. The series' 10 episodes premiered on September 21, 2018 on Globo's streaming service Globoplay. Despite her success, Mautner is often criticized by the actors she has worked with and other acquaintances as being too "strict" and "perfectionist". In 2017 it was reported that she fell out in favor with many of Rede Globo's telenovela writers, allegedly because of her "temperamental" demeanor, creative divergences with João Emanuel Carneiro and the lukewarm reception of A Regra do Jogo.
Personal life
Mautner was married to actor Marcos Palmeira from 2005 to 2012. The couple had a daughter, Júlia, born 2007. Since 2015 Mautner is dating Arnon Affonso, son of former Brazilian PresidentFernando Collor.
