Eduardo Geada

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Eduardo Geada (born 1945-05-21) is a Portuguese film director, screenwriter and professor born in Lisbon.

He graduated in Anglo-American Studies from the Faculty of Arts of Lisbon University (1976), and he obtained a cinematographic education through the film club movement of the sixties, like other film-makers of his generation. In 1978, as a Gulbenkian Foundation scholarship winner, he finished his specialization in Film Studies at the Slade School of Fine Arts (London College University). He completed his Master of Arts in Media and Communication at the New University of Lisbon, with a thesis on O Cinema Espectáculo (1985) and a Phd in Film and History of the Media, with the following thesis: Os Mundos do Cinema: Modelos Dramáticos e Narrativos no Período Clássico (1997). He was a professor at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema of Lisbon (Theatre and Film School) from1978 to 2004 and he has been teaching at the Escola Superior de Comunicação Social (Media and Communication College) since 2004. He is a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley (2007/2008).

Between 1968 and 1976 he worked as a film critic for Seara Nova, Vértice, Vida Mundial, A Capital, República and Express where he published several articles. He was the author and presenter of the radio programme Moviola (1985/86), on Antena 1, dedicated to film sound-tracks and later made a TV Show on cinema and culture. Between the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the Seventies, Geada gave an important contribution to film criticism, offering his own reflection on cinema, an activity which he has continued with the publication of several books.

From 1997 to 2002 he was the Managing Director of the CulturSintra Foundation at Quinta da Regaleira.

He is both a film and a TV director. His first film, Sofia ou a Educação Sexual (1973), was one of the last to be censored by the regime, as it was shown only after the Revolution of the 25th April. With the participation of some of the most important representatives of Portuguese culture like David Mourão-Ferreira, Jorge Peixinho or Eduardo Prado Coelho, and a renowned film critic- João Lopes- as an assistant director, the film raised expectations that the director’s career it did not entirely meet, partly due to the lack of a solid production structure.

After the Revolution he dedicated himself to works that reflected the sociological trend of that period. The documentaries Lisboa, o Direito à Cidade, A Revolução está na Ordem do Dia and Temos Festa, which were created for television, were an analysis of the new Portuguese reality from a left point of view, like a lot of other productions of that period, which are now historical documents of an undeniable value. The same can be said about the collective work As Armas e o Povo (1975), of which he was one of the directors and that portrays the events happened between the Revolution day and the 1st of May, which was celebrated freely, meditating also on the 48 years between the military coup of the 28th May 1926 and the fall of Marcelism.

O Funeral do Patrão (1975), based on a play by the Italian playwright Dario Fo, and A Santa Aliança (1977), with a scenario by Geada himself, have the pamphlet-like structure of some of the best post-Revolution productions. A Santa Aliança, selected for the Quinzaine des Realisateurs of Cannes Film Festival, is one of the most interesting films of the post-25th April period.

In the Eighties he started with some valid productions for television inspired by works and figures of Portuguese literature: Mariana Alcoforado (1980), based on the letters ascribed to Sóror Mariana Alcoforado, a nun in the Beja convent, in the 18th century, and the series Lisboa: Sociedade Anónima (1982-1983), with the films O Banqueiro Anarquista (based on the homonymous text by Fernando Pessoa), O Homem que não Sabe Escrever (texts by Almada Negreiros and the environment that led to the military coup of the 28th May 1926), A Impossível Evasão (on Urbano Tavares Rodrigues), Uma Viagem na nossa Terra (based on the work by José Rodrigues Miguéis) and O Ritual dos Pequenos Vampiros (based on José Cardoso Pires).

He then returned to feature-length films in 1983 with Saudades para D. Genciana, based on stories by José Rodrigues Miguéis. He subsequently returned to television with A Forma das Coisas (1986), Uma Aventura em Lisboa (1989) and Retratos da Madeira (1990).

His last feature-length film, Passagem por Lisboa, of 1993, is a homage to the memory of cinema (the film is dedicated to Félix Ribeiro and Luís de Pina, two pillars of the Portuguese Film Archive, who had disappeared two years before), with an interesting mixture of reality and fiction, revisiting Lisbon at the beginning of the Forties and with the presence on national soil of famous names like Pola Negri, Leslie Howard, the Duke of Windsor, Primo di Rivera and the fictitious character Victor Laszlo (in the movie Casablanca).

1 Academic Qualifications
2 Books
3 Writer and Director
- 3.1 Feature films for cinema
- 3.2 TV films and programmes
4 Arts and culture management

[edit] Academic Qualifications

1976: Degree in Anglo-American Studies from the Faculty of Letters of Lisbon University.
1977/78: Grant student from the Gulbenkian Foundation at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he obtained the post-graduate degree in Film Studies.
1984/85: Completes the M.A. in Cinema in the Department of Media Studies at the New University of Lisbon.
1997: PhD Thesis on Scriptwriting and Film History in the Department of Media Studies at the New University of Lisbon.
1978 to 2002: he has lectured at the Higher Institute of Cinema and Theatre.
Since 2002: he has lectured at the Higher Institute of Sciences of Communication.

[edit] Books

1977: IMPERIALISM AND FASCISM IN THE CINEMA (O Imperialismo e o Fascismo no Cinema), Moraes, Lisbon.
1978: CINEMA AND TRANSFIGURATION (Cinema e Transfiguração), Horizonte, Lisbon.
1985: THE POWER OF THE CINEMA (O Poder do Cinema), Horizonte, Lisbon.
1986: AESTHETICS OF THE CINEMA (Estéticas do Cinema - organização), Dom Quixote, Lisbon.
1987: THE CINEMA SPECTACLE (O Cinema Espectáculo), Edições 70, Lisbon.
1998: THE WORLDS OF THE CINEMA (Os Mundos do Cinema), Editorial Notícias, Lisbon.

[edit] Writer and Director

[edit] Feature films for cinema

1973: SOFIA AND SEXUAL EDUCATION (Sofia e a Educação Sexual)
1976: THE HOLY ALLIANCE (A Santa Aliança)
1985: GREETINGS FOR DONA GENCIANA (Saudades para Dona Genciana) (after José Rodrigues Miguéis)
1988: STREET OF NO RETURN (personal assistant to Samuel Fuller)
1993: PASSAGE TO LISBON (Passagem por Lisboa)

[edit] TV films and programmes

1974: LISBON, THE RIGHT TO THE CITY (documentary about Lisbon).
1975: THE BOSS'S FUNERAL (after a play by Dario Fo).
1976: PARTY TIME (documentary series).
1978: UNAVOIDABLE RISK (cultural series with sculptor Lagoa Henriques).
1979: MARIANA ALCOFORADO (after the translation by Eugénio de Andrade).
1982/83: LISBON LIMITED SOCIETY, fictional series including:
- THE ANARCHIST BANKER, after Fernando Pessoa.
- THE MAN WHO CAN'T WRITE, after Almada Negreiros.
- A JOURNEY IN OUR OWN LAND, after José Rodrigues Miguéis.
- THE RITUAL OF THE LITTLE VAMPIRES, after José Cardoso Pires.
- THE IMPOSSIBLE EVASION, after Urbano Tavares Rodrigues.
- SUNSET IN AREEIRO, after Sttau Monteiro.
1986/87: THE SHAPE OF THINGS (cultural series).