João Paulo Simões

Independent Portuguese Filmmaker João Paulo Simões was born in 1976 and is the grandson of legendary Angolan poet Maurício de Almeida Gomes. He trained mainly as an Editor, but was to release his first uncompromising project in 2001: Imogen Meets The Merchant, his first official outing as a Writer/Director. It was followed by Overture (2002), which marked a clear decision to experiment with digital technology. Soon after, Simões embraced the opportunity of making a film in his hometown of Lisbon with Torpor (2003), the first Portuguese-language film produced under newly formed Captüra Filmes. It was made on a shoestring budget, with black & white digital cinematography embellished by a poetic narrative and a lavish score/sound design. Once back in England, a new project entered pre-production: Duchess, Duchess (2004), an old-fashioned tale of retrospective jealousy leading to inevitable infidelity, which was pre-selected at Cannes Film Festival 2004 and has since been bought and broadcast on Sky TV various times. Amongst the earlier music video work, highlights are: the full-length DVD that accompanied the Sieben album, High Broad Field and Dolphins In Canada for New York project The Great Churn. 2007 sees the foundation of a new company, Frontier Media - under which a variety of short films, commissioned documentaries, promotional and music videos are produced. Amar Salgado for the project Nanashi had the most challenging approach to date: a hybrid between film and music video, which would be perfected later with Victim for Sow, He Can Delve In Hearts - Sieben + Simões' finest collaboration to date - and in the controversial Lust for American hip-hop project Ithaka. João Paulo Simões has also made the features Ausências de Espírito (2005), Antlers of Reason (2006), a mystery tale which has become the Director's most notorious and widely seen film and Águas Furtadas & Outras Ausências (2007), the documentary A Vida é Simples, about the suicide of a young engineer, the Transmitting Musical Heritage series and the highly personal love letter to his own country Uma Curta de Amor.