
Directing
João Salaviza
Born 1984-02-19 · Lisbon, Portugal
João Salaviza (Portuguese: João Salaviza Manso Feldman da Silva; born 19 February 1984; Lisbon) is a Portuguese film director, screenwriter, editor, producer, and former actor. He is the recipient of several accolades, including the Short Film Golden Bear, the Short Film Palme d'Or, and the Un Certain Regard. João Salaviza was born on 19 February 1984, in Lisbon, Portugal. His father is José Edgar Feldman, a film director, and his mother is a producer. He studied at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School and at the Universidad del Cine de Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His film Arena won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In 2012, his film Rafa won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival. Salaviza worked as assistant editor in Manoel de Oliveira's Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl.
Acting credits
9.0In mid-September 1992, journalist Guida Fontes have to go to Luanda to cover the elections in Angola. In the meantime, she had committed herself to discovering and interviewing the poet Júlio Vera. In 1988, he wrote a series of poems in which he mysteriously anticipated the fall of the USSR. Guida has only 12 days to complete the mission.
Querença
2004
NRBlanche, a social worker living in Southern France is assigned the case of a five year old deaf boy, who is found by a Gypsy lady after having been abandoned and tied to a shed near her trailer. The boy's life is in danger apparently because he is related to the family of a local politician who is seeking election as mayor. Blanche, though suffering from manic depression and thus emotionally vulnerable, decides to take charge of the situation, get her act together and besides being told to drop the case, seeks to discover the secret the boy has inside.
L'Enfant du secret
1996
NRA documentary about the world of portuguese cinema, with interviews with some critics and directors.
A Portuguese Film
2011
5.0At the end of the seventeenth century, in Naples, still dominated by the Spaniards, a young pupil, Balthasar,is castrated to preserve the purity and beauty of his voice. The Duchess dies and her son, the Duke of Arcos, takes charge of the inheritance, which includes Balthasar. With the entrance of Maria Loffredo, former lover of the Duke, a triangle is established that unchains tragic consequences to the allegedly callous life of Balthasar.
La leyenda de Balthasar el Castrado
1996
6.2The relationship between António and Ruth ends unexpectedly when Ruth decides to live with Pedro, António's best friend. António doesn't fight back and lets himself drown. From the woods come Violeta and Gaspar, two strange beings, a mixture of fairies, demons and guardian angels, who help António overcome his depression. With the thunders the two characters return to their domains. And life goes on.
When It Thunders
2000
6.2The relationship between António and Ruth ends unexpectedly when Ruth decides to live with Pedro, António's best friend. António doesn't fight back and lets himself drown. From the woods come Violeta and Gaspar, two strange beings, a mixture of fairies, demons and guardian angels, who help António overcome his depression. With the thunders the two characters return to their domains. And life goes on.
When It Thunders
2000
5.0One night Jorge will meet with a Japanese industrialist, who will allow him to abandon his teaching position and resume his chemical work. However, when he gets home he finds a person there.
Poor George
1993
NRHe was the most prolific within the New Portuguese Cinema generation. He would try western spaghetti, esoteric allegory, supernatural, and science-fiction. Without state subsidies, he would quit filmmaking in the 1990s. Who remembers António de Macedo?
In the Interstices of Reality or The Cinema of António de Macedo
2016
No synopsis available yet.
Da Invicta ao Sonoro
1997
Behind the camera
NRAn homage to Pina Bausch.
Hotel Müller
2010
NRAn homage to Pina Bausch.
Hotel Müller
2010
7.1Through her child’s eyes, Patpro will go through three periods of the history of her indigenous people, in the heart of the Brazilian forest. Tirelessly persecuted, but guided by their ancestral rites, their love of nature and their fight to preserve their freedom, the Krahô never stop inventing new forms of resistance.
The Buriti Flower
2024
7.1Through her child’s eyes, Patpro will go through three periods of the history of her indigenous people, in the heart of the Brazilian forest. Tirelessly persecuted, but guided by their ancestral rites, their love of nature and their fight to preserve their freedom, the Krahô never stop inventing new forms of resistance.
The Buriti Flower
2024
6.4Day breaks on the eighth floor in a suburban neighbourhood of Lisbon and 14-year-old David’s grandfather is still in hospital. Doctors give him only a few days to live. The imminence of death and the void that it will leave force David to become the man of the house, where he lives with his mother Mónica, who is in her 30s, and his three-year-old sister.
Mountain
2015
6.4Day breaks on the eighth floor in a suburban neighbourhood of Lisbon and 14-year-old David’s grandfather is still in hospital. Doctors give him only a few days to live. The imminence of death and the void that it will leave force David to become the man of the house, where he lives with his mother Mónica, who is in her 30s, and his three-year-old sister.
Mountain
2015
NRThe Mentuwajê Guardians of Culture (a group of young Krahô filmmakers) invite the Beture Collective (Mebêngôkre-Kayapó) to visit their village and attend the Kêtwajê festival – an important initiation ritual that has not taken place for ten years. Over the course of several days, children and adolescents undergo various “tests” to transform into adult warriors, under the watchful and shared gaze of the local filmmakers and the Mebêngôkre-Kayapó guests.
Ketwajê
2023
6.0Russa returns to Bairro do Aleixo, in Oporto, visiting her sister and friends with whom she celebrates her son's birthday. In this short encounter, Russa returns to her neighbourhood's collective memory, where three of the five towers still exist.
Russa
2018
6.0Russa returns to Bairro do Aleixo, in Oporto, visiting her sister and friends with whom she celebrates her son's birthday. In this short encounter, Russa returns to her neighbourhood's collective memory, where three of the five towers still exist.
Russa
2018
6.0Russa returns to Bairro do Aleixo, in Oporto, visiting her sister and friends with whom she celebrates her son's birthday. In this short encounter, Russa returns to her neighbourhood's collective memory, where three of the five towers still exist.
Russa
2018
3.5A man is seen by a prostitute in his home. They try to communicate. But the loneliness they both carry creates a gap between them, enabling that communication.
Two People
2004
5.9Denying his duty and in order to escape a crucial process of becoming a shaman, Ihjãc runs away to the city. Far from his people and culture, he faces the reality of being an indigenous in contemporary Brazil.
The Dead and the Others
2019
5.9Denying his duty and in order to escape a crucial process of becoming a shaman, Ihjãc runs away to the city. Far from his people and culture, he faces the reality of being an indigenous in contemporary Brazil.
The Dead and the Others
2019
5.9Denying his duty and in order to escape a crucial process of becoming a shaman, Ihjãc runs away to the city. Far from his people and culture, he faces the reality of being an indigenous in contemporary Brazil.
The Dead and the Others
2019
6.6A young man under house arrest spends his time in the best way he can by making some tattoos. His relative peace is strangely disturbed when he's attacked and robbed by three kids from the neighborhood. From then on, he'll try to find the kids who took his money and maybe give them a lesson. But with those actions, comes the reflection of how things were and are in this place filled with violence and hostility. Is change possible?
Arena
2009
6.6A young man under house arrest spends his time in the best way he can by making some tattoos. His relative peace is strangely disturbed when he's attacked and robbed by three kids from the neighborhood. From then on, he'll try to find the kids who took his money and maybe give them a lesson. But with those actions, comes the reflection of how things were and are in this place filled with violence and hostility. Is change possible?
Arena
2009
6.3Developing from an idea of diptych, the story of Anajara and Allison is told from two perspectives in continuity. If late night work complicates the life of one of them, the incarceration in jail of the other determines a cycle of separation. Salaviza's skill to direct amateur actors is showed in this film, one of his more precise works.
Cerro Negro
2012
6.3Developing from an idea of diptych, the story of Anajara and Allison is told from two perspectives in continuity. If late night work complicates the life of one of them, the incarceration in jail of the other determines a cycle of separation. Salaviza's skill to direct amateur actors is showed in this film, one of his more precise works.
Cerro Negro
2012
6.3Karlon, born in Pedreira dos Húngaros (a slum in the outskirts of Lisbon) and a pioneer of Cape Verdean creole rap, runs away from the housing project to which he had been relocated.
High Cities of Bone
2017
6.3Karlon, born in Pedreira dos Húngaros (a slum in the outskirts of Lisbon) and a pioneer of Cape Verdean creole rap, runs away from the housing project to which he had been relocated.
High Cities of Bone
2017
6.2Rafa is a 13 years old kid concerned with his mother, held in a police station for driving without a license. The director shows a day in the life of a teenager who lives on a problematic area and discovers that her mother was arrested because of an automobile accident.
Rafa
2012
6.2Rafa is a 13 years old kid concerned with his mother, held in a police station for driving without a license. The director shows a day in the life of a teenager who lives on a problematic area and discovers that her mother was arrested because of an automobile accident.
Rafa
2012
NRAn intimate documentary exploring friendship, resilience, and love among a group of young people in Madrid. Through a cinéma vérité approach, the film captures their struggles, aspirations, and moments of joy amid economic uncertainty. A central thread follows Sara, who falls in love with another woman, navigating the excitement and vulnerability of new love. Her journey of self-discovery unfolds organically, adding depth to the film’s broader themes of identity and connection. With its raw, unscripted storytelling, To Our Friends offers a poignant look at contemporary urban life and the enduring bonds that sustain us.
To Our Friends
2025
4.8In the beginning the idea was to make something from nothing, in a neutral and unknown place. Collect images and sounds instead of producing them. The camera, the microphone and the mini-amplifier: tools that take away and then give back. We defined a rule: the sound shouldn't illustrate the image and the image shouldn't absorb the sound. Less than a hundred kilometres from Reykjavik we found Strokkur. For three days we saw and heard the internal dynamics of the crevice: the boiling water that spat out every seven minutes and the thermal shock, given the eighteen degrees below zero of the atmosphere.
Strokkur
2011