Rui Simões (born Lisbon, 20 March 1944) is a Portuguese film director, who is known for his practice of historical documentary, seen as Cinema Militante, for political intervention, and also for directing video documentaries and recordings of theater and dance performances.
Biography
After finishing his secondary education, and later attending a course in ballet at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, he left the country in 1966 to avoid military service and mobilization for the Portuguese Colonial War. He settled in Paris and later in Brussels, where he attended the École Ouvriére Supérieure and a course in History at the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1970 he was a student in the Film and Television Directing course at the IAD (Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Brussels).
Rui Simões is responsible for the production company Realficção (Lisboa), where he also develops audiovisual and multimedia teaching activities. The business dedicates itself not only to producing his own works, but also those of directories who are concerned with social injustices for disfavored or marginal groups, both in Portugal and in former Portuguese colonies.
Palavras em movimento: testemunho vivo do património cinematográfico – project developed by Raquel Rato in an article written as part of the partnership between the History Laboratory of the Institute of Contemporary History (IHC) in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at NOVA University of Lisbon, with the coordination of Ana Paula Pires, Luísa Metelo Seixas, Ricardo Castro and Susana Domingues.
