Miguel Gaudêncio

Name: Second Life (2009)
Released: 2009-01-21
Rating: 4.3

Born in Mozambique and raised in Portugal, director Miguel Gaudencio had made more than two hundred music videos by the age of 30. He has earned many awards: Try Again, for example, won the SOL TV Music Video award for the best music video of the year 2000. By 2001 advertising agencies were lining up to utilize Miguel's talent and he began shooting commercials for leading multi-national clients such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Mercedes. By 2003 Miguel was working right across Europe; he has now directed commercials for a stable agency's across the continent and beyond, including Poland, Germany, Russia, Croatia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania and North of Africa (Maroco and Tunisia). In 2004 Miguel directed his first short-feature, "The Hole", a 30-minute film that was the standout work in a ten-part Christmas-story special aired on Portuguese television. As his commercial work continued to go from strength to strength, Miguel directed his second 30-minute feature, a taught psycho-sexual thriller, "Same Room Same Time", in 2006. In 2008 Miguel directed his first full-length feature film, "Second Life". With an international all-star celebrity cast (Piotr Adamczyk, Liliana Santos, Claudia Vieira) the film was the biggest production budget in Portuguese cinema history, an eight-week shoot on location in Portugal and Italy. The film is the most commercially successful Portuguese film in the first six months of 2009. In 2010 Miguel directed the first ever Polish feature documentary, "Desire for Beauty", on the issues of beauty and self-perception. The making of the film Desire for Beauty attracted a number of renowned members of Polish social scene (Piotr Najsztub, Zbigniew Lew-Starowicz, Maria Czubaszek) and found solid support in the professional opinions of the country's top experts in various fields - from psychology to the fashion industry. The film stars Agata Kulesza and was released in the cinemas during the spring of 2013. The film has been released worldwide during 2014 through Kinonation, an industry leader in VOD distribution, and it's now available on a series of platforms which include Hulu, Amazon Prime and IndieFlix, just to say a few. "Down, But Not Out!" and "No Excuses", both documentaries (shot simultaneous during the summer of 2014) are a personal approach to the world of feminine sport. "Down, But Not Out!" follows four amateur women boxers as they step into the ring for the first time and "No Excuses" captures imagery in a Crossfit atmosphere set to a diversified selection of commentators on gender equality. Both films will be available in selected cinemas and VOD outlets starting the spring of 2015.