Cláudia Varejão

Directing

Cláudia Varejão

Porto, Portugal

Cláudia Varejão was born in Porto and studied at the Creativity and Artistic Creation Program of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in partnership with the German Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin and the São Paulo International Film Acadamy. She also studied Photography at AR.CO in Lisbon. Claúdia is the author of the trilogy of short films Weekend, A Cold Day and Morning Light. Ama-san, a portrait of japanese divers, was her first feature film which received dozens of awards around the world, followed by In The Darkness of the Theater I Take Off My Shoes, a film that shows the intimacy of a group of dancers from a dance company. Amor Fati is her latest film due for release in 2020 and Wolf and Dog, in development, will bring us back her vision of fiction. Cláudia's films have been selected and awarded by the most pretigious film festivais, including Locarno, Rotterdam, Visions du Reel, Cinema du Reel, Karlovy Vary, Art of the Real - Lincoln Center, among many others. Alongside her work as a director, Cláudia develops a career as a photographer ans is a guest professor at AR.CO and Catholic University of Porto. Her work, whether in photography or film, documentary or fiction, lives in close proximity to those portrayed.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

In the Darkness of the Theater I Take Off My Shoes poster
6.7

The National Ballet of Portugal is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Since its foundation, it has aimed to present the great classics, as well as to always welcome contemporary creations. Day-to-day life is demanding for dancers, choreographers, musicians, répétiteurs, seamstresses, light technicians, sound technicians, and other elements of a large staff that make it possible for dance to travel through the rehearsal rooms and linger in the hallways before making it onto the stage. This film follows not only the company’s creations and premieres, but mainly each dancer’s silent and structural work.

In the Darkness of the Theater I Take Off My Shoes

2016

Luz da Manhã poster
3.0

On a summer's day, a mother, daughter and granddaughter's care-free day trip comes to an abrupt end. Beautiful and restrained.

Luz da Manhã

2011

Luz da Manhã poster
3.0

On a summer's day, a mother, daughter and granddaughter's care-free day trip comes to an abrupt end. Beautiful and restrained.

Luz da Manhã

2011

Cold Day poster
5.0

A portrait of a first relationship, previous to the external world, the one of the family. In a winter in Lisbon, father, mother, son and daughter trace the path of a day by themselves. A film that develops through characters who have for their antagonist life itself, with nothing (and everything) heroic about it.

Cold Day

2009

Cold Day poster
5.0

A portrait of a first relationship, previous to the external world, the one of the family. In a winter in Lisbon, father, mother, son and daughter trace the path of a day by themselves. A film that develops through characters who have for their antagonist life itself, with nothing (and everything) heroic about it.

Cold Day

2009

Wolf and Dog poster
5.4

Ana was born in São Miguel, an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean ruled by religion and traditions. Growing up as the middle child of a family of three with her mother and grandmother. Early Ana realized that girls and boys were given different tasks. Through her friendship with Luis, her queer best friend who loves dresses as much as pants, Ana questions the world that is promised to her. When her friend Cloé arrives from Canada, bringing with her the glowing days of youth, Ana embarks on a journey that will take her beyond the horizon.

Wolf and Dog

2022

Wolf and Dog poster
5.4

Ana was born in São Miguel, an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean ruled by religion and traditions. Growing up as the middle child of a family of three with her mother and grandmother. Early Ana realized that girls and boys were given different tasks. Through her friendship with Luis, her queer best friend who loves dresses as much as pants, Ana questions the world that is promised to her. When her friend Cloé arrives from Canada, bringing with her the glowing days of youth, Ana embarks on a journey that will take her beyond the horizon.

Wolf and Dog

2022

Ø island poster
NR

The Ø island is composed of several landscapes within a single landscape. They are territories lived and shaped by interior and exterior time. There are no privatized territories on this island. They are landscapes that cannot be accommodated: they expand through encounters, clashes, pressures and frictions. Between silence and intimacy, new islands are sculpted, in a possible encounter between life and death.

Ø island

2023

Amor Fati poster
5.8

Amor Fati seeks out parts that complete each other. These are portraits of couples, friends, families and pets and their owners. They share the intimacy of daily life, habits, beliefs, tastes and even some physical traits. From their faces, from the choreography of their gestures, we unveil the story that binds them.

Amor Fati

2021

No artwork available
NR

A country house. A weekend. A family. Time goes by. Silence prevails. "But listen to the breath of the unceasing message made of silence."

Weekend

2007

No artwork available
NR

A country house. A weekend. A family. Time goes by. Silence prevails. "But listen to the breath of the unceasing message made of silence."

Weekend

2007

Kora poster
NR

Kora outlines the stories of refugee women living in Portugal. They all carry their past with them, in their body and words, as well as in pictures of their loved ones. From these memories, we access the intimate and political gaze of those who reconstruct (their) present.

Kora

2024

There Will Be an Election poster
NR

On April 25, 1975, the first free elections were held in Portugal. The adult population exercised their right to vote democratically for the first time. Around 92% of registered voters went to the polls, a turnout rate that has never been surpassed to this day. Election night was held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, while the vote count was broadcast live on television. This film revisits the elections through the images produced during that night and the testimonies of those who lived through this historic moment.

There Will Be an Election

2025

Ama-San poster
6.8

A dive, the midday sunlight filtering down through the water. The air in her lungs has to last until she can dislodge the abalone. Dives like these have been carried out in Japan for over 2000 years by the Ama-San.

Ama-San

2016

Ama-San poster
6.8

A dive, the midday sunlight filtering down through the water. The air in her lungs has to last until she can dislodge the abalone. Dives like these have been carried out in Japan for over 2000 years by the Ama-San.

Ama-San

2016

No artwork available
NR

In the turbulence of urban life, we tend to underestimate things we need. This documentary asks seventy inhabitants from various social and age groups in the Lisbon metropolitan area to mention what they need the most, and thus a very particular portrait of contemporary Portuguese society is composed.

Falta-me

2005

The Art of Delusion poster
6.0

The art of delusion is sculpted with images from a family archive from the 70s and 80s and sound clips from films. Madame Bovary is Flaubert's heroine and opens the hosts of this narrative exercise. Based on Ema Paiva's dialogue with her friend and confidant Pedro Luminares in the film Vale Abraão (Manoel de Oliveira, 1993), we understand gender identity as a closed characterisation of social values.

The Art of Delusion

2020