João Canijo

Directing

João Canijo

Born 1957-12-10 · Porto, Portugal

João Canijo (born 10 December, 1957; Porto) is a Portuguese filmmaker. His film Get a Life was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. His 2011 film Blood of My Blood was selected as the Portuguese entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. His 2023 film Bad Living won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival. Before his directorial debut, Canijo worked as assistant director for Wim Wenders in The State of Things (1982) and for Werner Schroeter in Der Rosenkönig (1986).

Acting credits

Lisbon Story poster
7.2

Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.

Lisbon Story

1994

Los Barcos poster
NR

An actress travels to Lisbon representing a film where she has a secondary role, regarding nobody else was available to go. In the Q&A in the Cinematheque she doesn't know how to answer the audience questions.

Los Barcos

2016

O Pomar poster
NR

West, end of the summer. Laura works at the pear harvesting, a family business. During the afternoon, Carol arrives at the village to spend a few vacation days with her friends. That night, when Laura catches them stealing pears from one of her father’s orchards, her friend confronts her about her true intent.

O Pomar

2024

The Day of My Wedding poster
NR

The film follows the adventures of a bride and her family on the verge of a nervous breakdown on her wedding day.

The Day of My Wedding

2016

Step by Step poster
6.6

Nogueira, a man in his fifties, is a relic of times long past. While the youngsters at the school where he works as a caretaker still think the world is their oyster, Nogueira knows that, for him, most doors have long closed.

Step by Step

1990

Here in Lisbon poster
5.0

Welcome to Lisbon: there are mermaids by the Tagus and birds flying over the old city; there are mad scientists and singing fish; lost tourist guides and lost tourists; fado and sad guitars. What a weird city you may think - but no. Lisbon is about being different, sarcastic, welcoming to foreigners even in an economic crisis. Different directors became fascinated by our strangeness. We became fascinated by these directors. The city is never the same in these four episodes, here in Lisbon.

Here in Lisbon

2015

Behind the camera

Lovely Child poster
7.1

Maria is a sweet child. She hasn’t father and doesn’t like her mother. She has a boyfriend, A bandit who would like to change his class.

Lovely Child

1990

Lovely Child poster
7.1

Maria is a sweet child. She hasn’t father and doesn’t like her mother. She has a boyfriend, A bandit who would like to change his class.

Lovely Child

1990

Raul Brandão was a Great Writer... poster
4.0

This film is an attempt to disclose if Raul Brandão has left any trace, in Nespereira, Gumarães.

Raul Brandão was a Great Writer...

2012

Raul Brandão was a Great Writer... poster
4.0

This film is an attempt to disclose if Raul Brandão has left any trace, in Nespereira, Gumarães.

Raul Brandão was a Great Writer...

2012

Bad Living poster
4.8

In a family-run hotel near the northern coast of Portugal, several women from the same family, spanning different generations, live together. Their relationship, poisoned by bitterness, struggles to survive in the decaying hotel. The unexpected arrival of a granddaughter in this claustrophobic space provokes turmoil and rekindles latent hatreds and accumulated resentments.

Bad Living

2023

Bad Living poster
4.8

In a family-run hotel near the northern coast of Portugal, several women from the same family, spanning different generations, live together. Their relationship, poisoned by bitterness, struggles to survive in the decaying hotel. The unexpected arrival of a granddaughter in this claustrophobic space provokes turmoil and rekindles latent hatreds and accumulated resentments.

Bad Living

2023

No One Twice poster
6.5

Director Jorge Silva Melo has developed a viable, though highly intellectual mystery story about the world of art and culture and murder in this somewhat theatrical presentation. When German artist Bernd Hoffmann (Michael König) arrives in Lisbon to oversee the installation of his paintings in a joint exhibition with another Berlin artist, Hanna Brauer (Charlotte Schwab), Hanna never shows up. Hoffmann is puzzled because he is certain he saw a video sequence with Hanna at the exhibition, and he begins to look for her. Another Lisbon cultural center, a theater, is also having problems that may or may not be related -- and the mystery deepens when Hanna is found dead, either by her own hand, or murdered.

No One Twice

1985

In the Darkness of the Night poster
6.0

A disturbing film about the Portuguese underworld of prostitution.

In the Darkness of the Night

2004

In the Darkness of the Night poster
6.0

A disturbing film about the Portuguese underworld of prostitution.

In the Darkness of the Night

2004

Lusitanian Illusion poster
6.4

Images and sounds expose the duality of Portugal during the days of WW2: a peaceful, god-loving, rural country, providing an escape route for over one hundred thousand European refugees to the Americas; and a political and cultural elite that disguised their Nazi inclinations just enough to play its neutral role in international politics.

Lusitanian Illusion

2010

Lusitanian Illusion poster
6.4

Images and sounds expose the duality of Portugal during the days of WW2: a peaceful, god-loving, rural country, providing an escape route for over one hundred thousand European refugees to the Americas; and a political and cultural elite that disguised their Nazi inclinations just enough to play its neutral role in international politics.

Lusitanian Illusion

2010

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Fugas.pt

2003

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

As Ucranianas

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Encenação

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Encenação

Fojos poster
NR

Castro Laboreiro, in the far north of Portugal, is a place whose hills lead to a dead-end street. They call it the end-of-the-world’s pit. Men and wolves live abreast. Wolves leave their lair to freely attack the preys of men locked in their burrows. Both trapped in this huge pitfall called life from where no-one gets out alive.

Fojos

2020

Living Bad poster
5.6

A hotel by the northern shore of Portugal welcomes its guests over the weekend. A man is torn between being present for his wife and the space that his mother takes up between the two of them. A mother encourages her daughter’s marriage to enable her own love affair with her son-in-law. Another mother lives through her daughter, preventing her from making her own decisions. Three families at the end of their cycles of acceptance.

Living Bad

2023

Living Bad poster
5.6

A hotel by the northern shore of Portugal welcomes its guests over the weekend. A man is torn between being present for his wife and the space that his mother takes up between the two of them. A mother encourages her daughter’s marriage to enable her own love affair with her son-in-law. Another mother lives through her daughter, preventing her from making her own decisions. Three families at the end of their cycles of acceptance.

Living Bad

2023

Get a Life poster
7.3

During one winter night, a Portuguese teenager, Alvaro, loses his life in a fight between a youth gang and the cops in a suburb of Paris. Cidalia, a 36 year old cleaning woman, his mother, decides to defy the code of silence of the Portuguese community and tries to find the truth. She losses her friends, her job and her family but gains a life.

Get a Life

2001

Get a Life poster
7.3

During one winter night, a Portuguese teenager, Alvaro, loses his life in a fight between a youth gang and the cops in a suburb of Paris. Cidalia, a 36 year old cleaning woman, his mother, decides to defy the code of silence of the Portuguese community and tries to find the truth. She losses her friends, her job and her family but gains a life.

Get a Life

2001

The Day of My Wedding poster
NR

The film follows the adventures of a bride and her family on the verge of a nervous breakdown on her wedding day.

The Day of My Wedding

2016

Blood of My Blood poster
7.1

A regular family living in the outskirts of Lisbon sees the serenity of their lives shaken beyond any remedy within a week.

Blood of My Blood

2011

Blood of My Blood poster
7.1

A regular family living in the outskirts of Lisbon sees the serenity of their lives shaken beyond any remedy within a week.

Blood of My Blood

2011

Diary of Beiras poster
NR

A journey through the Beiras region. The houses, the cafes, the streets, the people still living in them. What the lands were and are, and the testimonies of those still living there. The day-by-day of some of those people – less and less, and increasingly aged. And alone.

Diary of Beiras

2017