Born in Guaxuma, a beach in North-East Brazil, Nara is now living in Recife. She started to study journalism due to a lack of film schools where she grew up. She directed 3 short films, two animated, the other one in live action images. The first one Dia Estrelado (2011), her graduation film, is a stop motion animated movie, about a family that is trying to survive in a inhospitable area. Her inspiration for this film came from the frequent trips she took with her father to Sertão ; an extremely dry and poor region of Brazil. With it, she learned to write a script, make a shot list, to animate a movie. Her second film, Sem Coração (2014), co-directed with Tião, is a live action image that was selected at the Quinzaine Des Réalisateurs where it received the Illy price of the best short movie. Her short-film Guaxuma premiered in TIFF and has won many prizes world wide.
