João Pedro Rodrigues
João Pedro Rodrigues (born 1966 in Lisbon ) is a Portuguese film director.
Career
After an aborted study of Ornithology 1985, he began studying at the Lisbon Film School, graduating in 1989. After assisting other directors (Alberto Seixas Santos, Teresa Villaverde ), he turned in 1988 his first short film, O Pastor ( " The Shepherd "). His next short film Parabéns ( "Congratulations " ) received a special mention at the 54th Venice Film Festival. In 1998 he turned Viagem à Expo, Expo 98, the World Expo in Lisbon.
2000 was his first full-length feature film in Venice and fell to the international criticism. As a result, O Fantasma received other awards, including two major awards for best film ( in Belfort and New York).
After his second feature film Two Drifters ( orig.: Odete ) in 2005, he turned To the like a man ( orig.: morrer to Como Homem ), who had at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section Premiere 2009. The author Carlos Castro Rodrigues suspected to have his novel Ruth Bryden used for the film as a template.
For 2012, the publication of his last film, A Última Vez Que Vi Macau is ( "When I saw Macau the last time " ) is expected.
Reception
Rodrigues ' films are usually located in the homosexual milieu, which has hitherto rarely occurred in the Portuguese film, and has been discussed so consistently by any Portuguese director. And while his atmospheric images remain mostly controlled and observational, Rodrigues ' characters are usually uncontrolled, unruly whether or lost. Relatedly, his films have because of some frontal scenes and themes in the Portuguese public sometimes caused controversy. By the critics, however, his films have been received with great interest. Thus the Cinematheque BAM - Brooklyn Academy of Music and the HFA - Harvard Film Archive already shown Rodrigues retrospectives, but also in other countries, cinephiles have dealt with him, even in Germany. He thus belongs together with names like Miguel Gomes or Edgar Pera to a new generation of Portuguese filmmakers who develop their own narrative languages , outside the mainstream and fashion topics. So is Rodrigues, with its contemporary themes and its current film aesthetics, in the tradition of the Portuguese auteur since the Novo Cinema, is also recognized as one of the hopefuls for the young European film, in particular the so-called gay and lesbian cinema.