Ricardo Costa completed his studies in 1967 at the Faculty of Arts at
the Lisbon University. After submitting a thesis on the novels of Kafka
- "Franz Kafka : writing in the mirror" - he obtained the degree of
"doctor of philosophy" (PHD) in 1969. He was a high school teacher and
owned a company where he published a number of sociological texts and
avant-garde papers, literature and cinema, during the period of fascist
domination in Portugal. During this period he also made some films, but
it was only after the "April Revolution" of 1974 that he became a film
professional (director and independent film producer). He collaborated
with the Radio Televisão Portuguesa (RTP) as an independent producer
for several years since 1975. He produced and directed two series of
documentary films, some approaching fiction. : "Mar Limiar" ("Sea
Horizons"), a first series about the sea and the life of Portuguese
fishermen - 40 films, 25 minutes, and "Homem Montanhês" ("Mountain
Men"), a second one, four feature films on mountain communal villages,
three episodes of 30 minutes each. Despite being produced for
television, these films are pure cinema and illustrate a tendency. The
director followed one of the paths available to Portuguese
cinematographers at the time. - The theater of reality is pure life.
And dreams start here, like movies His presence in the field at the
time of Portugal's liberation from fascism (between 1974 and 1977), led
him to work with TV stations, such as ARD and CBS, which broadcast many
of the historical images he shot. Submitted to documentary, he directed
and produced his first fiction film. in 1978/1980, a non conventional
creation, which was suspected to be surrealistic. Fiction projects
standing by, reality imposes itself. He mixes up both genres once again
and produces Brumas (Haze), his latest feature film. He wrote several
essays on cinema, vision and language and organized projections and
cinema cycles in Lisbon and Paris (Cinémathèque Française and Musée de
l'Homme) among others.
