Rui Simões

Directing

Rui Simões

Born

1944-03-20 (82)

Place of birth

Lisbon, Portugal

Known for

Directing

Credits

40 titles

Known for

Propriedade Privada poster
NR

Private Property is built of a thick matter from the mixture of cement, desire, past dreams, lies, lime, perverse games, pain, a hidden camera, water, passing time, blood and imminent danger.

Propriedade Privada

2001

Between the Scenes poster
NR

A documentary filmed during the shooting of Os Maias - (Alguns) episódios da vida romântica, the cinematic adaptation directed by João Botelho of the homonymous novel by Eça de Queirós. Following the cast in and out of scenes of the period film In-Between Scenes takes on its role as an extension to the history of the Maias family, exposing the lies of cinema, moving in between reality and fiction.

Between the Scenes

2014

Natália, a Diva Trágicómica poster
NR

Documentary about the life of the lyric singer Natália de Andrade.

Natália, a Diva Trágicómica

2011

Ku Handza poster
NR

Benjamin is trying to raise money through informal exchanges so that he can organize his son’s overdue birthday. Filimone is visiting his family between war missions, trying to be present at the growth of his three daughters. Eulália is a mother of six and gives birth to a new premature baby. Some days after, she has to come back to her job in a landfill.

Ku Handza

2025

The Anchorage of Time poster
NR

In Mozambique, Izidine, a young police inspector, is called to investigate the murder of Vasto Excelêncio, the director of a nursing home built within the walls of an old colonial slave fortress. He is shocked when all the elderly residents, as well as the head nurse, Marta, confess to the murder. Each one has motive, given Excelêncio’s abusive behavior. With only a week to solve the case, the detective slowly unravels truths about the murder, Mozambique's colonial past, and himself.

The Anchorage of Time

2024

Cold Hands poster
NR

This work deals with seduction, fights, power games, surrender and rejection, fear, loneliness and eternal love.

Cold Hands

2001

Behind the camera

Propriedade Privada poster
NR

Private Property is built of a thick matter from the mixture of cement, desire, past dreams, lies, lime, perverse games, pain, a hidden camera, water, passing time, blood and imminent danger.

Propriedade Privada

2001

Between the Scenes poster
NR

A documentary filmed during the shooting of Os Maias - (Alguns) episódios da vida romântica, the cinematic adaptation directed by João Botelho of the homonymous novel by Eça de Queirós. Following the cast in and out of scenes of the period film In-Between Scenes takes on its role as an extension to the history of the Maias family, exposing the lies of cinema, moving in between reality and fiction.

Between the Scenes

2014

Between the Scenes poster
NR

A documentary filmed during the shooting of Os Maias - (Alguns) episódios da vida romântica, the cinematic adaptation directed by João Botelho of the homonymous novel by Eça de Queirós. Following the cast in and out of scenes of the period film In-Between Scenes takes on its role as an extension to the history of the Maias family, exposing the lies of cinema, moving in between reality and fiction.

Between the Scenes

2014

Natália, a Diva Trágicómica poster
NR

Documentary about the life of the lyric singer Natália de Andrade.

Natália, a Diva Trágicómica

2011

Ku Handza poster
NR

Benjamin is trying to raise money through informal exchanges so that he can organize his son’s overdue birthday. Filimone is visiting his family between war missions, trying to be present at the growth of his three daughters. Eulália is a mother of six and gives birth to a new premature baby. Some days after, she has to come back to her job in a landfill.

Ku Handza

2025

The Anchorage of Time poster
NR

In Mozambique, Izidine, a young police inspector, is called to investigate the murder of Vasto Excelêncio, the director of a nursing home built within the walls of an old colonial slave fortress. He is shocked when all the elderly residents, as well as the head nurse, Marta, confess to the murder. Each one has motive, given Excelêncio’s abusive behavior. With only a week to solve the case, the detective slowly unravels truths about the murder, Mozambique's colonial past, and himself.

The Anchorage of Time

2024

Cold Hands poster
NR

This work deals with seduction, fights, power games, surrender and rejection, fear, loneliness and eternal love.

Cold Hands

2001

Tango Privado poster
NR

Private Tango is the result of complicity between the interpreters and the camera. The movements initially choreographed adapt and reinvent themselves in an improvisation where the camera also becomes her interpreter.

Tango Privado

2001

No artwork available
NR

Peruvian sculptor Silvia Westphalen reencounters friends, places and pieces of work in the company of the director Rui Simões

Entre Pedras

2016

Good Portuguese People poster
6.7

Using film and television footage taken during the revolutionary movement of April 25, 1974 in Portugal, and mixing it with music and live interviews with common people, the director conveys a vivid account of the period in which a military coup evolved to a socialist revolution, then was tempered into a formal European style democracy.

Good Portuguese People

1981

Good Portuguese People poster
6.7

Using film and television footage taken during the revolutionary movement of April 25, 1974 in Portugal, and mixing it with music and live interviews with common people, the director conveys a vivid account of the period in which a military coup evolved to a socialist revolution, then was tempered into a formal European style democracy.

Good Portuguese People

1981

Good Portuguese People poster
6.7

Using film and television footage taken during the revolutionary movement of April 25, 1974 in Portugal, and mixing it with music and live interviews with common people, the director conveys a vivid account of the period in which a military coup evolved to a socialist revolution, then was tempered into a formal European style democracy.

Good Portuguese People

1981

No País de Alice poster
NR

With this trip, an intergenerational sharing begins: with Portugal present as a backdrop, the director and a little daughter wander as if in question, trying to understand the country of today.

No País de Alice

2021

No País de Alice poster
NR

With this trip, an intergenerational sharing begins: with Portugal present as a backdrop, the director and a little daughter wander as if in question, trying to understand the country of today.

No País de Alice

2021

No País de Alice poster
NR

With this trip, an intergenerational sharing begins: with Portugal present as a backdrop, the director and a little daughter wander as if in question, trying to understand the country of today.

No País de Alice

2021

The House poster
NR

Built in the New State to control the overseas students, the House of the Students of the Empire, situated in Lisbon with delegations in Coimbra and Porto, was fundamental in the fight for independence of the Portuguese colonies. Future leaders of the Liberation Movement, like Agostinho Neto and Amílcar Cabral, passed through this meeting point. The documentary The House restores the memories of the testimonies of the survivors of the House, fictionalizing in parallel excerpts of Pepetela´s “The Generations of Utopia”.

The House

2017

The House poster
NR

Built in the New State to control the overseas students, the House of the Students of the Empire, situated in Lisbon with delegations in Coimbra and Porto, was fundamental in the fight for independence of the Portuguese colonies. Future leaders of the Liberation Movement, like Agostinho Neto and Amílcar Cabral, passed through this meeting point. The documentary The House restores the memories of the testimonies of the survivors of the House, fictionalizing in parallel excerpts of Pepetela´s “The Generations of Utopia”.

The House

2017

Deus Pátria Autoridade poster
7.0

The history of Portugal since the Republican revolution of 1910 to the revolutionary period following the military coup of April 24, 1974, recounted with a marxist perspective, using historic sound and film documents. The title refers to a trilogy of values proclaimed by Salazar, prime minister of Portugal in 1936.

Deus Pátria Autoridade

1976

Deus Pátria Autoridade poster
7.0

The history of Portugal since the Republican revolution of 1910 to the revolutionary period following the military coup of April 24, 1974, recounted with a marxist perspective, using historic sound and film documents. The title refers to a trilogy of values proclaimed by Salazar, prime minister of Portugal in 1936.

Deus Pátria Autoridade

1976

Deus Pátria Autoridade poster
7.0

The history of Portugal since the Republican revolution of 1910 to the revolutionary period following the military coup of April 24, 1974, recounted with a marxist perspective, using historic sound and film documents. The title refers to a trilogy of values proclaimed by Salazar, prime minister of Portugal in 1936.

Deus Pátria Autoridade

1976

Kolá San Jon é Festa di Kau Berdi poster
NR

This documentary follows a group of habitants from Cova da Moura neighborhood into a journey to Cape Verde, to celebrate St. John festivities. Recovering the rituals and rhythms of these festivities, the cape verdean people living in that neighborhood near Lisbon, try to recover their roots and transmit it to their children.

Kolá San Jon é Festa di Kau Berdi

2012

Kolá San Jon é Festa di Kau Berdi poster
NR

This documentary follows a group of habitants from Cova da Moura neighborhood into a journey to Cape Verde, to celebrate St. John festivities. Recovering the rituals and rhythms of these festivities, the cape verdean people living in that neighborhood near Lisbon, try to recover their roots and transmit it to their children.

Kolá San Jon é Festa di Kau Berdi

2012

Kolá San Jon é Festa di Kau Berdi poster
NR

This documentary follows a group of habitants from Cova da Moura neighborhood into a journey to Cape Verde, to celebrate St. John festivities. Recovering the rituals and rhythms of these festivities, the cape verdean people living in that neighborhood near Lisbon, try to recover their roots and transmit it to their children.

Kolá San Jon é Festa di Kau Berdi

2012

How Many Times Have You Dreamt About Me? poster
NR

Departing from extracts written by Fernando Pessoa, the characters walk through the city of Lisbon, having the streets and houses where the Poet lived as the background.

How Many Times Have You Dreamt About Me?

2018

Cova da Moura Island poster
NR

In greater Lisbon area, the name Cova da Moura has never been synonymous with well-being, education or prosperity. on the contrary, it has always been associated with the idea of violence, insecurity, danger or, at best, with lack of education and sheer poverty. Cova da Moura Island follows this neighbourhood's daily life, finding the cape verdean reflections in it and searching for the ways in which social exclusion is fought or perpetuated in the lives of its residents.

Cova da Moura Island

2010

Dawns poster
NR

Documentary about "Madrugada" show: On the eve of 25th of April, 1999, took place at Praça do Comércio, in Lisbon, the performance of "Madrugada", a creation of the Theatre O Bando, commissioned by the Lisbon city council to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the "April Revolution".

Dawns

1999

Unwavering Light poster
NR

Fernando Lemo's world is fiercely stripped of any external logic, as Jorge de Sena once said. His artistic gesture blends with his own existence, where the poetic principle comes first. And with the light that insists to come through the half-closed door, the fear of life is vanquished in the battle fought with death. Thus, each word is born within another word and each image within another image. Out of how many knives is love made, the poet wonders?

Unwavering Light

2010

Irmãos Catita: Very Sentimental Show poster
NR

Live concert of the Irmãos Catita and friends at the Ritz Club, in 1996, Very Sentimental Show. Includes bonus concerts: Cinearte 1993, and Queima das fitas Coimbra 1994. The roots of the Catitas' spirit are buried deep down the origin of time. Spread like Polibas around the World, starting from its own center of balance, elsewhere in the elevator of Grand Hotel Curia, raised by the "madrastas", a kind of so-called religious female-educator, spread amoung the Christian World, and whose main educational tool is the stick, the Catita brothers became early "stars" within the various orphanage they frequented, from French Polynésie to San Marino's Republic, through Casa Pia and the various holiday camps of the former New State, today refered to as Old State.

Irmãos Catita: Very Sentimental Show

2005

Memoirs of Teatro da Cornucópia poster
NR

A renowned symbol of Portuguese interventionist theatre, Cornucópia emerged from the darkness of fascism to fight dictatorship on stage. Among the classics, a project is born and dies, but one face remains emblematic: Luís Miguel Cintra, who shared his art with the constant complicity of set designer Cristina Reis. Together, guided by images, they bear witness, telling this story.

Memoirs of Teatro da Cornucópia

2025

Lisboa Domiciliária poster
NR

Documentary about the old people living in the highest floors of old buildings with no lifts, in Lisbon.

Lisboa Domiciliária

2010

Imensa Saudade poster
NR

Documentary by Rui Simões, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of Expo 98, one of the biggest exhibitions that Portugal hosted

Imensa Saudade

2018

From Coal to Waste - The Return to São Pedro da Cova poster
NR

40 years later, Rui Simões returns to São Pedro da Cova to exhibit the photographs he took during the directing of São Pedro da Cova's films. From this reencounter a new message to the centralised powers: now it's toxic waste that is threatening people's health. 40 years later. From coal to waste, the fight goes on.

From Coal to Waste - The Return to São Pedro da Cova

2017

From Coal to Waste - The Return to São Pedro da Cova poster
NR

40 years later, Rui Simões returns to São Pedro da Cova to exhibit the photographs he took during the directing of São Pedro da Cova's films. From this reencounter a new message to the centralised powers: now it's toxic waste that is threatening people's health. 40 years later. From coal to waste, the fight goes on.

From Coal to Waste - The Return to São Pedro da Cova

2017

No artwork available
NR

Frei Gualter is sent by S. Francisco de Assis to Guimarães around 1213. The devotion to this franciscan friar started to rise and in 1577 the brotherhood of S. Gualter is created. The Gualterianas are celebrated since 1906, the new way of celebration in honor of their patron.

In Honour of St. Gualter

2012

No artwork available
NR

Frei Gualter is sent by S. Francisco de Assis to Guimarães around 1213. The devotion to this franciscan friar started to rise and in 1577 the brotherhood of S. Gualter is created. The Gualterianas are celebrated since 1906, the new way of celebration in honor of their patron.

In Honour of St. Gualter

2012

Adeus, até amanhã poster
NR

António Escudeiro was born, grew up and worked in Angola until the day when he was forced to leave. He swore he would return. But his return home only took place thirty-two years later. "Goodbye, See You Tomorrow" is the documentary of that return, in which there is a crossing and confronting of two visual universes: the director's memories and today's Angola.

Adeus, até amanhã

2007

De Armas e Bagagens poster
NR

What would you take with you if you had to leave home without knowing if you would come back? Between 1974 and 1976, nearly 300 thousand Portuguese had to leave Angola. More than 100 thousand were born there. This is the story of the incredible escapes from Angola by land, sea and air. And of everything that they didn't want to leave behind.

De Armas e Bagagens

2013

Teus olhos castanhos de encantos tamanhos poster
NR

The story of a homeless man and his journey.

Teus olhos castanhos de encantos tamanhos

2018

Teus olhos castanhos de encantos tamanhos poster
NR

The story of a homeless man and his journey.

Teus olhos castanhos de encantos tamanhos

2018

Alto Bairro poster
NR

In Lisbon 1950, John, 13, decides to invade the neighborhood of prostitutes, nobility and sailors, starting a new stage in his life. Today this neighborhood is reflected in a scattered public debate centered on its night life.

Alto Bairro

2014