Director, screenwriter and producer, Teresa Villaverde is one of the most important names of a generation of Portuguese film directors that emerged in the 1990s. She is the author of a very personal filmography, influenced by certain paradigmatic Portuguese characteristics, and which pays particular attention to themes such as childhood and adolescence, inadequacy and difficulty of interpersonal communication.
She participated in several productions as an actress, set designer, screenwriter, assistant director and assistant editor, before directing a striking trio of feature films, screened at the greatest film festivals: Alex (1991), a reconstitution of Portugal in the beginning of the 1970s, marked by the Colonial War; Two Brothers, My Sister (1994) which won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Festival given to Maria de Medeiros and The Mutants (1998) selected for the Cannes Film Festival, section Un Certain Regard, which approaches the rootlessness of young teenagers coming from dysfunctional family environments.
In 2006, Teresa Villaverde directed Trance, a film portraying illegal immigration and human trafficking, which was also chosen for the Cannes Film Festival (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) and the Toronto Festival, irrevocably consolidating her international profile.
Swan (2011) assembles many subjects from her previous films, echoes of her first works, recurrences and extensions of Water and Salt, a film she directed in 2001.
Teresa Villaverde collaborated on some collective works, contributing with her segments in Visions of Europe (2004), Venice 70 – Future Reloaded (2013) and Bridges of Sarajevo (2014). In 2004 she also directed a documentary, In Favor of Light, a portrait of the artist Pedro Cabrita Reis.
In 2016, Teresa Villaverde is preparing to premiere her new film, Colo, starring Beatriz Batarda in the lead role.
The tenth edition of Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival will present a complete retrospective of her work.