Foi Bonita a Festa is a film production company focused on cinema and contemporary art film founded in 2021 by Catarina de Sousa and Pedro Neves Marques.
Reflecting their work experience in places such as Lisbon, São Paulo and New York, the film production company aims to build bridges both disciplinary and geographical. Whether fiction, documentary or experimental film, we aim to show our films on the film festival circuit and in commercial theaters, as well as in museums and art institutions, developing films driven by singular visions of our times.
Catarina de Sousa is a filmmaker and producer of cinema and artist films. In 2021 she founded with Pedro Neves Marques the cinema and art film production company Foi Bonita a Festa, based in Porto, Portugal. She is the founder of Casa do Xisto, an artistic residence that aims to promote connectivity through the cinema, based in the village of Macieira de Rates in the north of Portugal. Casa do Xisto is funded by The Portuguese Institute of Cinema (ICA) in partnership with Mono No Aware in New York.
In cinema she produced between Portugal and Brazil the following films: "Becoming Male in the Middle Ages" (2022; world premiered at IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ammodo Tiger Short Award Winner), "The Bite" (2019; world premiered at TIFF - Toronto International Film Festival), "Art and Hurt"(2018; world premiered at DocLisboa), and "Exterminator Seed" (2017; world premiered at IndieLisboa), all short films directed by Pedro Neves Marques. She also produced "Valley of Doubts" (in post production) by Francisca Manuel. She is associate producer of "Ecstasy" (2020) by Moara Passoni and "Olmo and the Seagull" (2015) by Petra Costa and Lea Glob.
She is now co-producing "Gold and Ashes" the first feature film by Salomé Lamas with O Som e a Fúria, in Portugal, and co-producing "Giving Birth" by Adriana Vila Guevara, with Diana Toucedo Films in Spain and Horns and Tails Productions in the United States. She is producing two projects in development by Pedro Neves Marques: their first feature film "DNA at the Speed of Light" and a new short film "My Senses Are All I Have to Offer."
As a filmmaker she co-directed "Tracing Utopia" (2021) with Nick Tyson, directed while at UnionDocs - Center of Documentary and Art in New York, with an international premiere at the IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam. She is now developing "Celestial Glitch," a continuation of her co-directing partnership with Nick Tyson.
In cinema she produced between Portugal and Brazil the following films: "Becoming Male in the Middle Ages" (2022; world premiered at IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ammodo Tiger Short Award Winner), "The Bite" (2019; world premiered at TIFF - Toronto International Film Festival), "Art and Hurt"(2018; world premiered at DocLisboa), and "Exterminator Seed" (2017; world premiered at IndieLisboa), all short films directed by Pedro Neves Marques. She also produced "Valley of Doubts" (in post production) by Francisca Manuel. She is associate producer of "Ecstasy" (2020) by Moara Passoni and "Olmo and the Seagull" (2015) by Petra Costa and Lea Glob.
She is now co-producing "Gold and Ashes" the first feature film by Salomé Lamas with O Som e a Fúria, in Portugal, and co-producing "Giving Birth" by Adriana Vila Guevara, with Diana Toucedo Films in Spain and Horns and Tails Productions in the United States. She is producing two projects in development by Pedro Neves Marques: their first feature film "DNA at the Speed of Light" and a new short film "My Senses Are All I Have to Offer."
As a filmmaker she co-directed "Tracing Utopia" (2021) with Nick Tyson, directed while at UnionDocs - Center of Documentary and Art in New York, with an international premiere at the IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam. She is now developing "Celestial Glitch," a continuation of her co-directing partnership with Nick Tyson.
For television she has produced "Laureano Barros, Rigorous Refuge" (2017) by Paulo Pinto and she is the author of the documentary "Truth or Consequence" (2017) about the Post-Truth era, both projects funded by the Portuguese Public Television - RTP.
In contemporary art she produced the film Installations: “Vampires in Space” by Pedro Neves Marques, Official Portuguese Representation - Portugal Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, and "The Bite" (2019) a commission of Pérez Art Museum in Miami, both by Pedro Neves Marques. She produced the artist films by Mariana Silva "Zoomorphic Eye/Camera Trap" (2018) commissioned by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and “Cyborg Wildlife" (in production) comissioned by Fundació La Caixa. She also produced the film installation "Catherine or 1786" (2017) by Francisca Manuel, curated by Walk and Talk in partnership with ARQUIPÉLAGO - Contemporary Arts Center, Azores.
She has a Master in Communication Sciences - Information and Journalism from the University of Minho, with training in Documentary Workshops of the Ateliers Varan, France. She was a resident artist at UnionDocs - Center for Documentary Art in New York, with a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. As a Journalist she worked for LUSA News Agency, Rádio Clube Português, Barcelona Televisió, and is a collaborator of Mídia Ninja - Independent Narratives, Journalism and Action - from Brazil.
In contemporary art she produced the film Installations: “Vampires in Space” by Pedro Neves Marques, Official Portuguese Representation - Portugal Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, and "The Bite" (2019) a commission of Pérez Art Museum in Miami, both by Pedro Neves Marques. She produced the artist films by Mariana Silva "Zoomorphic Eye/Camera Trap" (2018) commissioned by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and “Cyborg Wildlife" (in production) comissioned by Fundació La Caixa. She also produced the film installation "Catherine or 1786" (2017) by Francisca Manuel, curated by Walk and Talk in partnership with ARQUIPÉLAGO - Contemporary Arts Center, Azores.
She has a Master in Communication Sciences - Information and Journalism from the University of Minho, with training in Documentary Workshops of the Ateliers Varan, France. She was a resident artist at UnionDocs - Center for Documentary Art in New York, with a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. As a Journalist she worked for LUSA News Agency, Rádio Clube Português, Barcelona Televisió, and is a collaborator of Mídia Ninja - Independent Narratives, Journalism and Action - from Brazil.
Pedro Neves Marques is a film director, visual artist, and writer. Born in Lisbon, Portugal, they lived and worked in London, São Paulo and New York. Their short fiction film Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (2022) premiered at IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it was awarded the Ammodo Tiger Short Award at the. Their previous short fiction The Bite (2019) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was awarded prizes at Go Short Nijmegen, Short Waves, Sicilia Queer Festival, MixBrasil, and MIEEF. Their first short fiction film for cinema, Exterminator Seed (2017) premiered at IndieLisboa International Film Festival. Their short documentary Art and Hurt (2018) premiered at DocLisboa International Film Festival is streaming for free online.
Their artist films and artworks have been exhibited in contemporary art institutions globally to critical acclaim, including at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (Turin), High Line (NYC), CA2M (Madrid), CaixaForum (Barcelona), Pérez Art Museum of Miami (USA), Berardo Museum Collection (Lisbon), and e-flux (New York), as well as in art major art biennials and group shows such as the Liverpool Biennial, Gwangju Biennial, Beijing Inside Out Museum, Tate Modern Film, Serpentine Galleries, Museo Reina Sofia, Kadist Foundation, and Anthology Film Archives.
Their artist films and artworks have been exhibited in contemporary art institutions globally to critical acclaim, including at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (Turin), High Line (NYC), CA2M (Madrid), CaixaForum (Barcelona), Pérez Art Museum of Miami (USA), Berardo Museum Collection (Lisbon), and e-flux (New York), as well as in art major art biennials and group shows such as the Liverpool Biennial, Gwangju Biennial, Beijing Inside Out Museum, Tate Modern Film, Serpentine Galleries, Museo Reina Sofia, Kadist Foundation, and Anthology Film Archives.
They were the Portuguese Official Representation - Portugal Pavilion at the 59th Venice Art Biennale in 2022 with their exhibition Vampires in Space, and were awarded the prestigious Present Future Art Prize in 2018 and a Pinchuk Future Generation Special Prize in 2021.
Outside of cinema and the visual arts they founded the poetry press Pântano Books in 2020. They are the author of the poetry collection Sex as Care and Other Viral Poems (Pântano Books, 2020) and of short story collections such as Morrer na América (Abysmo and Kunsthalle Lissabon, 2017). They write regularly on art, cinema, and theory for magazines and publications internationally. They edited the anthologies The Forest and The School/ Where to Sit at the Dinner Table? (Archive Books, 2015) and YWY, Searching for a Character Between Future Worlds: Gender, Ecology, Science Fiction (Sternberg Press, 2022), and co-edited e-flux Journal special issue “Supercommunity” for the 56th Venice Art Biennale in 2015.
Outside of cinema and the visual arts they founded the poetry press Pântano Books in 2020. They are the author of the poetry collection Sex as Care and Other Viral Poems (Pântano Books, 2020) and of short story collections such as Morrer na América (Abysmo and Kunsthalle Lissabon, 2017). They write regularly on art, cinema, and theory for magazines and publications internationally. They edited the anthologies The Forest and The School/ Where to Sit at the Dinner Table? (Archive Books, 2015) and YWY, Searching for a Character Between Future Worlds: Gender, Ecology, Science Fiction (Sternberg Press, 2022), and co-edited e-flux Journal special issue “Supercommunity” for the 56th Venice Art Biennale in 2015.
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Foi Bonita a Festa
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Joana Bernardes