Biography
Luísa Sequeira is a filmmaker, visual artist, and film curator. She specializes in documentary filmmaking and holds a PhD in Media Arts, exploring the boundaries between digital and analog platforms. Lately, she has been working with real-time expanded cinema. Her work focuses on the poetic reconstruction of female narratives in art and cinema history, which have been marginalized by patriarchal power structures. She is the co-founder, with artist Sama, of Oficina Imperfeita, a space dedicated to cinema and contemporary art in Porto.
Luísa Sequeira is a filmmaker, visual artist, and film curator. She specializes in documentary filmmaking and holds a PhD in Media Arts, exploring the boundaries between digital and analog platforms. Lately, she has been working with real-time expanded cinema. Her work focuses on the poetic reconstruction of female narratives in art and cinema history, which have been marginalized by patriarchal power structures. She is the co-founder, with artist Sama, of Oficina Imperfeita, a space dedicated to cinema and contemporary art in Porto.
Recently, she presented the real-time expanded cinema lecture performance “This was no country for young women” (2024) at Wadham College in Oxford and the expanded cinema performance “Is Poetry Still on the Streets?” at the Círculo de Artes Plásticas de Coimbra during the pre-Bienal de Coimbra Year Zero (2024). She directed the feature-length documentary “What Words Can Do” (2022, co-directed with Luísa Marinho), winner of the Audience Award at Doclisboa 2022; and “Who is Bárbara Virgínia?” (2017), screened at various film festivals including IFFR – International Film Festival Rotterdam, Doclisboa, São Paulo International Film Festival, awarded at Porto Femme and Festival Caminhos do Cinema Português.
In addition to her work in video art, she has directed and produced several short films, including “The Pioneers of Portuguese Language Cinema” (2023), “Limit” (2022), “Becomingness” (2019), “Născută” (2019), “The Carnations and the Rock” (2016), “Memory, a Feminine Noun” (2015), “La Luna” (2015), “Passenger” (2008), and “Women on Stage” (2006). Her works have been exhibited at the 13th Kaunas Biennial, META Cultural Foundation, Cinema Museum in London, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Moser Theatre, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Anca Poterasu Gallery in Bucharest, Masc Foundation in Vienna, MUSAU in Vienna, Mindelo Cultural Center, Mimo Museum, Nuno Centeno gallery, Adorna gallery, São Paulo International Film Festival, Kinoforum, Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, IndieLisboa, DocLisboa, Korean Film Archive, Portuguese Cinematheque, Iberodoc, Interbay Cinema Society Seattle Experimental Film Festival, Maus Hábitos, Tribeca Film Center, and BCK Film Symposium in Athens, Greece.
Recently, she has collaborated with TEP on expanded cinema and video art. She created videos for the play “A.N.T.I.G.O.N.A” and real-time expanded cinema and image manipulation for the show “Estro/Watts.” She was selected for a film creation residency at the Meta Cultural Foundation in Romania. She has held several exhibitions, including “The Light of the Dead Star” at Nuno Centeno gallery (2019); “The Time of Others” at Adorna gallery (2018) and Mindelo Cultural Center (2019); “Infinite Crises,” in partnership with artist Sama at Sput&nik the Window. She exhibited her videos at various venues: Anca Poterasu Gallery in Bucharest, 1st BCK Film Symposium in Athens, Cinema Museum in London, Videolatinas Show in Brazil (2021). In 2022, she participated in the 13th Kaunas Biennial and the collective exhibition “Body-Manifestos” at Maus Hábitos, held the exhibition “Cine Constellation” at Masc Foundation in Vienna (2022), and was part of the collective exhibition “In Residence,” with artists Ana Efe and Carla Cruz at MUSAU in Vienna, Austria.
She collaborates on expanded cinema in the “Poetic Flesh” project, a performative feminine triad with original poems by poets Li Alves and Maria Giulia Pinheiro. On television, she coordinated “Fotograma” (2007), a magazine dedicated to Portuguese language cinema. In 2022, she wrote and directed “Rosas de Maio,” a co-production of TEP with Rivoli, a theater and expanded cinema play that premiered at Rivoli. Since 2010, she has been the artistic director of Shortcutz Porto and Super 9 Mobile Film Fest. She recently curated the cycle “Poetry is still on the streets” for the pre-Bienal de Coimbra Year Zero, “Women with Camera in Hand, Cinema and Revolution” for Porto Femme Festival, and the program for Cine Amadora.
Currently, she is working on the animation project “Ave Marias” with artist Sama and producing the series “The Pioneers of Portuguese Language Cinema”. Her upcoming exhibitions include University of Leeds, Nottingham, Cinemateca Brasileira, Cerveira Art Biennial, and Centro Audiovisual Simone de Beauvoir.