João Pedro Rodrigues

FILMMAKER
PORTUGAL

He is an internationally acclaimed Portuguese filmmaker. When he was 8 years old, his father gave him a pair of binoculars and he decided to become an ornithologist. He always travels with his binoculars, to foray into nature and watch birds. His work explores gender and human desire in all its guises —and disguises— reflecting the multifarious history of film, from classical genre to documentary and experimental film. He directed seven features: ‘O Fantasma’ (2000), ‘Odete’ (2005, special mention, Cinémas de Recherche at Cannes Film Festival), ‘To Die Like a Man’, (2009, Cinema of the Future Award at Bafici), ‘The Last Time I Saw Macao’ (2012, co-directed with João Rui Guerra da Mata, his lifelong partner; awarded at Locarno and Torino Film Festivals), ‘The Ornithologist’ (2016, Silver Leopard for Best Director - Locarno IFF), ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp’ (2022, Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes) and ‘Where Is This Street? Or with No Before or After’ (2022, co-directed with João Rui Guerra da Mata; Special Jury Prize at Torino Film FEstival). He has also directed several shorts, some together with Guerra da Mata. His films premiered and won prizes at the world’s foremost film festivals, including Cannes, Venice, Locarno, Toronto and Berlin and are part of several film archives and museum’s permanent collections, namely the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Harvard Film Archive, the Portuguese Cinematheque, the Austrian Film Museum and the Swiss Cinematheque. In 2016, the Pompidou Centre in Paris honored him and Guerra da Mata with a complete retrospective and installation exhibition.