João Pedro Rodrigues (born 24 August 1966) is a Portuguese film director. He is considered to be part of The School of Reis film family. Having studied at the School of Theatre and Cinema of Portugal, Rodrigues started his career as an assistant director and editor in several features, directed, for example, by Alberto Seixas Santos and Teresa Villaverde, among others. In 1997 Rodrigues directed his first film. O Fantasma (Phantom) (2000). Apart from the minor controversy it generated in Portugal, the film was shown in Spain, Italy, France, Brazil and the United States with modest results. Two Drifters (2005), his second feature film, has garnered relative international acclaim and was shown at the Cannes Film Festival.
His features have been produced and released by the production company Rosa Filmes.
A film by João Pedro Rodrigues
2022 - France/Portugal - Fantasy/LGBT/Musical
On his deathbed, his royal highness Alfredo, King without a crown, is taken back to distant youth memories and the time he dreamt of becoming a fireman. The encounter with instructor Afonso from the fire brigade, opens a new chapter in the life of the two young men immersed in love and desire, and the will to change the status quo.
A film by João Pedro Rodrigues
2016 - France/Brazil/Portugal - Drama
As he treks through the north of Portugal in search of rare birds, Fernando is swept away by the river rapids. Rescued by a couple of Chinese pilgrims, he tries to find his way back home through the eerie, dark forests, where uncanny encounters put him to the test. He soon becomes a different man, inspired, perhaps even enlightened…
A film by João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata
2012 - France/Portugal - Drama
Thirty years later I'm on my way to Macao where I haven't been since I was a child. I got an e-mail, in Lisbon, from Candy, a friend I hadn't heard from in ages. She told me that she had been involved yet again with the wrong men and asked me to go to Macao where "strange and scary things" were happening. Tired, after a long flight, I'm approaching Macao aboard the jetfoil which will take me back to the happiest time in my life.
A film by João Pedro Rodrigues
2009 - France/Portugal - Drama/Music
Once upon a time there was a war… In the darkness of the night, a young soldier goes AWOL. Tonia, a veteran transsexual in Lisbon’s drag shows, watches the world around her crumble. The competition from younger artists threatens her star status. Under pressure from her young boyfriend Rosário to assume her female identity, the sex change operation that will transform her into a woman, Tonia struggles against her deeply-held religious convictions. If, on the one hand, she wants to be the woman that Rosário so desires, on the other, she knows that before God she can never be that woman. And her son, whom she abandoned when he was a child, now a deserter, comes looking for her. Tonia discovers that she’s ill. To get away from all her troubles she travels to the countryside with Rosário, on the excuse of visiting his brother. Rosário takes the road of his childhood but will never find the right way. Lost, they find themselves in an enchanted forest, a magical world where they come across the enigmatic Maria Bakker and her friend Paula. And that meeting will turn their whole world on its head…
