Biography

December 10, 1957 · Porto, Portugal

When he's filming he likes to capture his characters' lives through windows, and half-open doors, like he's secretly observing fragments of a raw reality.

Canijo emphasizes that his style is constantly evolving, adapting his "process" according to the nature of each project. This dynamic, almost experimental method seeks to give the viewer the freedom to interpret and imagine what is off-screen. In a scene where one character is going to wake another, for example, the filmmaker prefers to focus only on the foot of one of them, inviting the audience to imagine what is hidden in the other's invisible expression. In his work, Canijo does not provide easy answers about family dramas; he provides an open window so that each viewer, when spying on the characters, finds something of themselves.

João Canijo films like a clandestine voyeur, capturing his characters' lives through cracks, windows, and half-open doors. This way of filming creates a purposeful distance: Canijo wants the viewers to glimpse these people's worlds as if they're passing by, secretly observing fragments of a raw, often brutal reality. It's as if the audience is invading their space, yet at the same time held back by a physical boundary - the door-frame, the outline of the window - a visual reminder that his characters' lives belong to them alone, and the spectators are accidental intruders. This style creates a curious paradox: there's a closeness that pulls his audience in, but also a barrier that keeps people from losing themselves in the fiction, always leaving a hint of reality in what the spectators see. Canijo's camera, therefore, doesn't merely observe - it spies, it trespasses without asking permission, transmitting the impression that the audience shouldn't be there. And this approach is his signature, turning each scene into an experience that sits somewhere between discomfort and fascination, between the forbidden and the inevitable. It's almost a silent pact with the viewer: the audience is going to watch, but they're never going to fully understand.

On the concept behind the movie Fátima - I was looking for a situation where a group of women were forced to be together 24/7 and were pushed to their emotional limits. And suddenly the idea of ​​the most Portuguese thing came to me, which is a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Fátima on foot. This brings together the human nature of women with the paradox of being on a path in which they seek God, in which they demonstrate the need for God.