Teresa Villaverde

Director

May 18, 1966 (60 years)

Lisbon, Portugal

Biography

Teresa Villaverde is a Portuguese screenwriter, director, and producer, born in Lisbon in 1966. She began her artistic career as co-writer and co-director of a stage production with the Theatre Group of the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon. Her films have won numerous awards and have been the focus of retrospectives and critical study worldwide — including the Centre Pompidou (France, 2019) and Fundação de Serralves (Portugal, 2019) — as well as complete retrospectives at festivals and cinematheq…

Filmography

5.1

Venice 70: Future Reloaded

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

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Justa

In 2017, in Portugal, devastating wildfires destroyed forests and killed children and adults; some died in their villages, others were trapped on a road. Communication failed, and the villages had no shelters. The film’s action does not take place in 2017, but at a later time. It follows a small group of people who lost their dearest ones and are now in the process of learning how to live after everything they have lost.

5.2

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

5.2

Water and Salt

Ana lives in a little village by the sea, with her husband and daughter. He decides to leave for a few days. That seems to be the ideal solution, because Ana needs to finish a work she has been doing for a long time. But her concentration seems threatened when she starts doing her daily walks by the village and the beach: she saves a stranger from death in the sea, meets young Alexandre and Emilia, and her friend Vera turns up in her house. And then, everything changes…

6.3

The Bridges of Sarajevo

Thirteen European directors explore the theme of Sarajevo; what this city has represented in European history over the past hundred years, and what Sarajevo stands for today in Europe. These eminent filmmakers of different generations and origins offer exceptional singular styles and visions.

6.0

Two Brothers, My Sister

This dark and intense drama follows the slow and painful destruction of a young, passive woman as she watches her family fall apart. Maria is the shy and dutiful daughter upon whose shoulders the family traumas have fallen. In addition to a regular job she cooks, cleans, and studies. Her parents offer no assistance as her father is blind, with a tendency towards violence when drinking. His wife, the focus of his violence is terribly unhappy. After a particularly brutal beating, Maria's brothers rise up against the father and end up leaving the home. It is up to Maria to try to bring the factions together. Maria's pressures increase after she calmly stabs her boss during an attempted rape, and then copes with her mother's suicide.

7.0

Alex

The story of a child who faces the emptiness that surrounds the figure of his parents, disappeared in Africa.

7.7

The Mutants

Three homeless teenage rejects struggle to survive together. Of them, Andreia is pregnant, while Pedro and Ricardo hustle, steal and are exploited by a pornographer.

6.8

Colo

Struggling against the crisis in Portugal, a mother doubles up jobs to pay the bills since her husband is unemployed. Their teenage daughter tries to keep living everyday life even if the money is running short, which makes everything uneasy. Escaping from their common reality, they slowly become strangers to one another, as the tension grows in silence and in guilt.

6.2

Trance

Sonia, a girl from St. Petersburg, decides to seek a better life in Western Europe. She first gets a job at a car dealer in Germany. But she is suddenly kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. She will be dragged from country to country and resistance will only bring her misery and humiliation.

7.7

Cisne

Vera is a singer in her thirties; she is back in Lisbon for the final performance of her concert tour. The heat and beauty of Lisbon makes one want to be happy. Pablo, the companion she selected from among the many who answered her questionnaire, helps her through the sleepless nights. He has no family, but wishes he had. Vera concerns herself with the mysteries surrounding Pablo's life. Vera is not afraid of the night; she is not afraid of anything.

4.7

Galileo’s Thermometer

A whole summer long, Portuguese filmmaker Teresa Villaverde stayed with Italian cult director Tonino De Bernardi, who was working on projects including a film version of Sophocles’ Electra starring only local villagers. She sits at the table with the family in their garden, on the back seat of the car on the way home in the evening or listens to the stories told by the woman De Bernardi buys cheese and eggs from.

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Six Portraits of Pain

Several images follow one another to the work of António Pinho Vargas, Six Portraits of Pain, played in full.

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Paris 15/16

On December 1, 2015, in front of the restaurant Le Petit Cambodje, officials from the Paris City Council collect the flowers paying tribute to the victims of the November 13 attack.

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Où en êtes-vous, Teresa Villaverde ?

In Rio de Janeiro, people from the Mangueira neighbourhood follow the television broadcast on a big screen as the juries vote on each samba school. In 2019, Mangueira took to the Sambadrome a strong, bold samba of resistance to what’s taking place in Brazil right now. The film witnesses the tension while waiting for the final score, and the great joy of people from every generation when Mangueira wins and becomes champion of the 2019 Carnival.

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Cold Wa(te)r

There is not a single person in the world who has chosen their place of birth. Sometimes it only takes an outstretched arm to cross a border. But what is the purpose of a border? (Teresa Villaverde contribution to Visions of Europe, shown separately as part of retrospectives.)

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