João Mário Grilo is an investigator and professor at the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas of Universidade de Lisboa. He made his directorial debut with Maria, his first feature film, in 1979. Since then, he has directed over fifteen fiction and non-fiction works, including feature films, short films and documentaries, many of which were selected to participate in the most prestigious film festivals around the world, such as A Estrangeira, which was a part of the Official Selection of the Venice Festival and the winner of the Prix Georges Saudoul; Longe da Vista, also screened at Venice, O Processo do Rei at Berlin and Toronto, O Fim do Mundo at Cannes and Os Olhos da Ásia at Locarno. For his work, João Mário Grilo received the Special Jury Prize at FestRio in 1989, the PROCIREP Prize in Cannes in 1990, and the Aurélio Paz dos Reis Prize in 2010.
He has directed several documentaries on the subject of art, literature and architecture. Two of the most recent ones are dedicated to the work of Raul Lino (A Vossa Casa, winner of the TAP award at IndieLisboa) and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles (A Vossa Terra). Also noteworthy is Campo de Sangue (2023), an adaptation of Dulce Maria Cardoso’s novel, for which he was nominated for the Sophia Awards in the Screenplay category.
He is the author of several books, including O Livro das Imagens (2007), O Homem Imaginado (2006), As Lições do Cinema (2006) and O Cinema da Não-Ilusão (2006), and has published numerous articles on cinema and contemporary art in Portuguese and foreign publications (notably in Traffic magazine).