Ana Sofia Fonseca

Ana Sofia Fonseca is an award-winning Portuguese-Capeverdian director and producer, who loves telling compelling human stories with multiple layers. Her films bring powerful stories and characters which are, on one hand, local and, on the other, have a strong global interest.  Believing in the importance of understanding the past in order to map out the future, she often bets on a dialogue between current and archive footage, inviting audiences to reflect about timely and urgent questions. Her feature “Cesária Évora” (2022) had a successful theatrical distribution in France, Netherlands and Portugal and is scheduled to premiere in cinemas in Italy, Germany and Brazil. It is available to stream on AppleTV and HBOMax in selected territories. With a world premiere at SXSW, it screened in more than 60 festivals, including DocNYC, IDFA and Sheffield Doc Fest. It was nominated for 'Best Music Documentary’ at the IDA Awards, won three Public Audience Awards (IndieLisboa, Caminhos and Valenciennes 2 Film Festivals), and the Sophia Award for Best Documentary from the Portuguese Film Academy. The careful and original way in which she works with archive was distinguished with a place on the short list of the Focal Awards in London.

She also directed the award documentary “A Whole Life of September” and the documentary “On Borrowed Time”.

She began her career in journalism, building a solid experience across television and printed press, distinguished with dozens of journalism awards. such as Gazeta Award, AMI Journalism Against Indifference and UNESCO Journalism Human Rights & Integration.

She also published six books, including a novel.

Founder of Carrossel Produções, a Lisbon-based production company, she’s developing documentary projects that combine her effort to understand the paradoxes of human nature, her passion for cinema and her journalistic background,  exploring a cinematographic language committed to narrative and aesthetics. As a Cape-Verdean national, she is co-founder of Uabá Films, a new production company in the island of São Vicente, focusing on documentary co-productions between Africa and the world.

She has been a juror in various film-related forums. In 2024, she was jury member for Krakow IFF and, in 2023, for the festival ‘Caminhos do Cinema Português’. For the past two years, she has been a jury member of the GDA Foundation's short film grant.