João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata are Portuguese filmmakers who have worked together in various capacities since their first short film,Parabéns! (1997). Rodrigues has directed three feature films – O Fantasma (2000), Two Drifters (2005) and To Die Like a Man (2009) – where genres are mixed to tell stories that each deal, to some extent, with the theme of transformation.
The films co-directed with João Rui Guerra da Mata – China China (2007), Red Dawn (2011) and The Last Time I Saw Macao (2012) – have increasingly blended non-fiction and fiction in their exploration of globalization, post-colonization and formal experimentation. The duo presented Macao in the Wavelengths program of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival to appropriately high praise. It was our pleasure to host them at our TIFF studio space, Onsite [at] OCAD U, where we were treated to a candid, charming and insightful conversation about their incredible body of work.
This interview is from our extensive 2012 Toronto International Film Festival coverage and the full length interview was released in February 2013.
