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João Pedro Rodrigues

João Pedro Rodrigues

O Ornitólogo

film

As a Portuguese person, Saint Anthony is a figure you live with, negotiate with, for whom you may feel sympathy, aversion or, why not, curiosity. Thus, I wanted to find out to what extent this Saint Anthony inhabited me. What body could I reconstitute with the fragments picked up here and there, from scattered pieces – since, after all, several elements attracted me. What monster, lifelike or otherwise, would take shape? As for the main character in my film, Fernando, the future Anthony, I must admit that as I went on so I coloured him with my own story. He is a character who metamorphoses (like many characters in my earlier films), whose identity is transformed, and maybe this acquires a different meaning when you get over forty, when you think about the lives you have not lived. He is therefore like a continuation of a path that, a long time ago, I did not choose; another me existing in a parallel dimension. If I chose to give my Fernando a connection with birds, that is because ornithology, bird watching and bird watching trips are things I know very well. I studied biology and, more specifically, birds, long before I studied cinema. I still feel a deep fascination for bird watching and I often do it on my travels around the world. One could indeed see a number of features common to the two activities, notably the use of binoculars in one and the camera in the other.

João Rui Guerra da Mata, Antoine Barraud, Vincent Wang, Fred Bellaïche, Julie Rivière, Boran Yavuzes, Gary Delépine, Isabel d' Escragnolle-Taunay, Raphaël Lefèvre, Nuno Carvalho, Rui Poças, Séverine Ballon, Paulo Guilherme, Yov Moor, François Bonenfant, Alain Fleischer, Stéphanie Robin, Guylaine Huet, Pascale Pronnier, Eric Prigent, Valérie Delhaye, David Chantreau, François Lescieux, Blandine Tourneux, Martin Delzescaux, Michèle Vibert, Jacky Lautem, Pascal Buteaux, Julien Guillery, Margarida Cordeiro, António Reis, Randolph Scott, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Paulo Cunha e Silva, Paulo Rebelo, António Variações, David Bowie, Charlotte Bayer Broc, Ewan Golder, Marissa Viani Serrano, Raphaël Botiveau, Shirley Bruno, Tamar Hirschfeld, Thomas Guillot, Vincent Ceraudo, Jacob Wiener and all the others.

Born in 1966 in Lisbon. Graduated at the Lisbon Film School.

2011 - Alvorada Vermelha – Red Dawn Co-directed with João Rui Guerra da Mata Short documentary, Indie Lisboa

2009 - Morrer como um homem – To die like a man Festival de Cannes - Un Certain Regard

2007 - China, China Co-directed with João Rui Guerra da Mata Short, Festival de Cannes - Quinzaine des Réalisateurs

2005 - Odete Festival de Cannes - Quinzaine des Réalisateurs

2000 - O Fantasma 57th Venice International Film Festival

1997-1998 - Esta é a minha casa – This is My House / Viagem à Expo - Trip to the Expo Two part documentary

1997 - Parabéns! – Happy Birthday! Short, 54th Venice International Film Festival

1988 - O pastor – The Shepard Graduation short

João Pedro Rodrigues worked as assistant director and editing assistant in several features and shorts.