João Gonzalez
Directing
Biography
João Gonzalez (Porto, 1996) is a Portuguese director, animator, illustrator and musician with classical training in piano. In 2022 he premiered his first funded film “Ice Merchants” in Cannes Film Festival, winning Best Short Film in Competition from the Semaine de La Critique Jury, which would later become the first Portuguese film to be nominated for an Oscar®, and the most awarded Portuguese film in history, with more than 150 international awards. João has a great interest in combining his musical background with his artistic practice in animated cinema, always playing the role of composer and occasional instrumentalist in all the films he makes.
Known For
A story of a man with a very dense eyes who sees all the surrounding reality only after seven years. The consequence of the eye defect translates into the mental immaturity of the man, lack of understanding of the present and belated reflections on long-gone facts. The man is never mature enough for his age and constantly lingers on the past.
Slow Light
Every day, a father and his son jump with a parachute from their vertiginous cold house, attached to a cliff, to go to the village on the ground, far away where they sell the ice they produce daily.
Ice Merchants
Nestor, a man with several obsessive-compulsive behaviours lives in an unstable houseboat which never stops oscillating.
Nestor
A short film based on the true story of Nigel, the lonely gannet of Mana Island who hopelessly fell in love with a concrete statue. His tragic tale of idealisation and delusion shows us a reflection of our own misconceptions in love. MA Graduation film from Royal College of Art, London.
Nigel
"The Voyager" is an animation short film about a pianist living in a big metropolis, who suffers from agoraphobia (irrational fear of leaving home/public places) and is confronted with a need to go outside, to replenish his medications.