Ariel works out of Maputo, directing films that sit close to the ground. His work explores decolonized African identity through history, memory, and dreams — drawn to intimate, honest moments and to the way memory holds, distorts, and returns to the past. Influenced by Tarkovsky, Diop, Ozu, and Mambéty, he traces colonial inheritance and its persistence into the present.

His short film Submergido premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and screened at Locarno's Open Doors, winning the AFP Critics Prize, among other festival screenings.

He's currently in production on his next short, And Perhaps I Will Never Remember, selected for the IndieLisboa Film Lab. An exploration of the immortal power and baffling nature of childhood memories. Following Raimundo, an elderly man who, at the moment of his death, is pulled back to a singular night from his youth.

He works under his own production banner, Euforia Filmes.