Catarina Gonçalves (Azores, 1999) is a film director and visual, that works with both documentary and fiction, as well as installation and video art. Her work revolves around the idea of personal and collective memory, in a very intimate sense, and is often related to the female body, reflecting upon ideas like sacrifice, possession, and ownership.
She did her bachelor’s degree in Sound and Image from the School of Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University of Porto (2017-2020), a Documentary Film Course in Kinodocs in Lisbon (2020-2021) and is currently studying Documentary Film Directing on the DOC NOMADS Erasmus Mundus Joint Master-Degree (EMJMD) (2021-ongoing), where she studied at Universidade Lusófona Portuguesa (Lisbon), SZFE - University of Theatre and Film Arts (Budapest) and LUCA School of Arts (Brussels).
Her first documentary short film, Mãos de Prata (2020) won the third prize in the Prémios Sophia Estudante, organized by the Portuguese Cinema Academy, and the first prize in the Concordia Film Festival (Montreal, Canada), it was also selected for several festivals such as Festival de Curtas de Vila do Conde (Vila do Conde, Portugal), Porto Post Doc and for the Prémios Sophia of the Portuguese Cinema Academy.
Her installation piece, Light Years (2022) was just shown in the Walk & Talk Arts Festival (Azores) as a winner of the Artistic Residency for Young Creators.
At the moment, she is finalizing a fiction short film she directed, called Mátria, within the context of the celebrations of the 100th year of the late Portuguese writer, poet, and congresswoman, Natália Correia, organized by the Cara Lavada collective from the Azores.