Amidst the escalation of the military dictatorship in Brazil, she and her partner Rita Moreira fled to New York City to continue filmmaking, studying at The New School for Social Research.
[5] Pontes, who was a member of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), had worked on a film on the peasantry of Zona da Mata, titled Cabra marcado para morrer, but it was never released, presumably due to production issues with the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état.
[9] Amidst the escalation of the military dictatorship in Brazil, which had banned the PCdoB and arrested several of her associates, she left the country's film industry to work as an advertising executive, and in the early 1970s, she and her partner Rita Moreira, whom she met at a party for Editora Abril employees fled to New York City, having picked it specifically due to its lesbian community and widespread usage of the Portapak.
[21] She later moved to Rio de Janeiro after the two went their separate ways, and outside of some unproduced projects, her last video was the lost film A Cor da Terra (1988), co-directed with Ana Porto.
[22] Afterwards, she reportedly "tried to reposition herself in the advertising market while delirious with megalomaniacal projects that did not find trust or financial support to carry out", before her lesbophobic sister kicked her out of her residence and had her committed to psychiatric hospitals.