Rita Azevedo Gomes

Rita Azevedo Gomes (born in 1952) is a Portuguese filmmaker. Her work, Characterized by its experimental style, have been recognized at many film festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival, DocLisboa, and the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival. Upon returning to Lisbon, she became involved in the arts, working across multiple fields from visual to graphic arts as well as opera, theatre, and cinema. In the field of graphic arts, she produced notable film related work for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Portuguese Cinematheque.

She served as artistic director, set designer, and costume designer for theatre productions such as Antigone and The Seagull. In cinema, she worked as a costume designer, assistant director, and still photographer for directors such as Werner Schroeter, Manoel de Oliveira, and Valeria Sarmiento.

In 1990, Azevedo Gomes made her directorial debut with O Som da Terra a Tremer.

In her films, sound and voice are often constructed as parallel narrative layers, adding a dreamlike atmosphere that reshape the viewer’s experience of her work. Many of her films revolve around characters consumed by emotional obsessions, such as the widower in Altar and the duchess in A Woman’s Revenge. A Portuguesa won the Golden Lady Harimaguada at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, 2019.