It was with great sadness that School of Arts and its community learned of the passing of their professor and filmmaker João Canijo, at the age of 68.
In addition to being a professor, João Canijo played an active role in the establishment of the Cinema area at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. The singularity of his gaze, the ethical and artistic rigor with which he thought about cinema, and the generosity with which he shared his experience deeply marked several generations of students, leaving a lasting memory in the life of the School.
Born in Porto in 1957, João Canijo studied History at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto. In the early 1980s, he discovered his vocation for cinema, beginning his career as an assistant director on films such as Der Stand der Dinge / The State of Things (1982), by Wim Wenders, Fim de Estação (1982), by Jaime Silva, O Desejado (1987), by Paulo Rocha, and A Caixa (1994), by Manoel de Oliveira, where he discovered the importance of formal rigor.
In the second half of the 1980s, he directed two feature films, Três Menos Eu (1987) and Filha da Mãe (1990), which marked the beginning of a very close collaboration with Rita Blanco. Over more than four decades, he built a body of work that is central to contemporary Portuguese cinema, with standout titles such as Sapatos Pretos (1998), Ganhar a Vida (2001), Noite Escura (2004), Sangue do Meu Sangue (2011), and Fátima (2017), probing the interstices of Portugal’s profound social transformations and its persistent forms of violence.
His final work completed during his lifetime, the diptych Mal Viver / Viver Mal (2023), was presented at the Berlin International Film Festival, where Mal Viver was awarded the Silver Bear – Jury Prize, one of the most important distinctions of recent decades in Portuguese cinema. He had just completed the shoot of what will be his final feature film, Encenação.
School of Arts pays tribute to João Canijo, recognizing his unique contribution to Portuguese cinema and to the artistic and human education of its students. To his family, friends, collaborators, and all those who worked with him, we extend our deepest condolences.
