Rita Quelhas graduated in Film Direction from Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema in 2015, directing A Minha Juventude as part of her course. The film was presented at IndieLisboa 2016, at FEST, and at FILMADRID 2017, where she earned the Young Jury Prize for Best Film. She also works as an editor, and she highlights her work in Marco Martins' Ballet Gulbenkian — Um Corpo que Dança (2022)—a film entirely made from archival material which charts the path of the Portuguese dance company Ballet Gulbenkian. Since 2017, she has been working in theater as an assistant director to Marco Martins in the company Arena Ensemble—a work that combines theater, dance, visual arts, and performance. Interested in a transdisciplinary and collaborative art, she co-created with Beatriz Batarda, in 2023, the video installation Corpos Celestes. Anomalias (winner of the Best Documentary Award at the InShadow Festival) is her first documentary, and it follows the creation process for the Portuguese choreographer Victor Hugo Pontes' performance Corpo Clandestino.
Photograph
© Bruno Abib
