It all began with that first VHS tape, secretly rented from the street corner video store. He was pretty scared at first, but once the film started he could never go back...

Gonçalo Castelo Soares is a filmmaker based in Lisbon with ten years of experience in the Portuguese film business. He is known for making independent films, music videos, promotional videos and for his photography.

From his time working in several sectors of film production, such as editing, camera assistant and D.I.T., he has become acquainted with (and even knowledgeable in) all aspects needed to make a production go smoothly.

He has worked with personalities such as Mariana Gaivão, Acácio de Almeida, Paulo Branco, João Figueiras, Marco Martins, Fernando Lopes, João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata, Sérgio Tréfaut and Manoel de Oliveira, all of them with vastly different work methods, which made Gonçalo reflect heavily on what he wanted to be like and how he could best care for his cast, crew and clients.

His formal education consists of a Bachelor’s Degree in Film Editing finished in 2009. In 2019, he finished a Master’s Degree in Directing, specialising in the relationship between film and videogames. Both from the Portuguese Film School (ESTC) where he hopes to teach some day.

His work hours are spent shooting, editing and making budgets for new projects, while his free time is used to imagine new stories, continuously improving his screenwriting technique, keeping up to date with the current technological and aesthetic trends and photographing people when they least expect it.

Mainly influenced by British sardonic humor, Japanese sense of timing and minimalism, American pop culture overload, as well as the Portuguese sense of restlessness.