Pedro Costa


Pedro Costa is a Portuguese film director.

Biography

While studying history at University of Lisbon, Costa switched to film courses at Lisbon Theatre and Film School where he was a student of António Reis, Paulo Rocha and Alberto Seixas Santos. After working as an assistant director to several directors such as Jorge Silva Melo, Vítor Gonçalves and João Botelho, he made a first feature film O Sangue in 1989.
He collected the France Culture Award at 2002 Cannes Film Festival for directing the film In Vanda's Room. Colossal Youth was selected for the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and earned the Independent/Experimental prize in 2008.

Style and influences

He is considered to be part of "The School of Reis" film family. António Reis, Portuguese director, was his teacher at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School.

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called Pedro Costa "the Samuel Beckett of cinema". He is acclaimed for using his ascetic style to depict the marginalised people in desperate living situations. Many of his films are set in a district of Lisbon inhabited by socially disadvantaged and shot in a natural and low-key way in documentary format: some are docufictions.

Filmography

Features