Sexy, cerebral, and transgressive, the films of Portuguese auteur João Pedro Rodrigues are fearless explorations of queer identity, alienation, and desire that reach for—and frequently attain—the transcendent. Fascinated by the tension between the carnal and the spiritual, Rodrigues has explored the extreme limits of both in daring tales of physical and psychic transfiguration like his startling debut, the grimy erotic shocker O FANTASMA, and his most recent feature, the iconoclastic modern-day religious odyssey THE ORNITHOLOGIST. Teeming with some of the most striking and extravagant images in contemporary cinema, Rodrigues’s films are unforgettable feasts for the eyes as well as the intellect.
Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues • 2000 • Portugal
Starring Ricardo Meneses, Beatriz Torcato, Andre Barbosa
The startling feature debut from João Pedro Rodrigues struck both queer and art-house cinema like a lightning bolt with its seamy, transgressive blend of sex, grime, and sadomasochism. Roa...
Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues • 2005 • Portugal
Starring Ana Cristina de Oliveira, Nuno Gil, João Carreira
Two lonely people careen through life following their individual experiences of loss: Rui (Nuno Gil), a handsome young romantic, loses his lover Pedro on the day of their anniversary; Od...
Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues • 2009 • Portugal
Starring Fernando Santos, Chandra Malatitch, Miguel Loureiro
Tonia (Fernando Santos) is a larger-than-life drag icon of Lisbon’s nightlife in the late 1980s. Under pressure from her lover, Rosário (Alexander David), Tonia begins a series of gend...
Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues • 2016 • Portugal
Starring Paul Hamy, Xelo Cagiao, João Pedro Rodrigues
The latest from boundary-pushing director João Pedro Rodrigues is a mesmerizing metaphysical odyssey through both sexual and spiritual realms. Fernando (Paul Hamy), a solitary ornithologist, ...
In this 2017 episode of the series “Where Are You?,” created by the Centre Pompidou and Celluloid Dreams, director João Pedro Rodrigues explores his
career in cinema, with a focus on his film THE ORNITHOLOGIST, through a collage of lyrical imagery and reflective narration.
