Hard, Fast and Beautiful: Sports in Cinema

André Gil Mata

Director, screenwriter, producer, and cinematographer (São João da Madeira, 1978). He studied mathematics and worked in photography and theater. He served as curator of the Luso-Brazilian Film Festival in Santa Maria da Feira from 2001 to 2008. He founded the Átomo47 photography and film laboratory and the film production company Bando à Parte. He directed the short films Arca d’Água, House, O Coveiro, In a Snow Globe, and Pátio do Carrasco, as well as the feature films Cativeiro, How I Fell in Love with Eva Ras, DRVO. The Tree, and The Flame of a Candle. In 2020, he co-founded Rua Escura, a film cooperative in Porto, where he has produced his own films as well as those of other directors.

Cláudia Varejão

Cláudia Varejão was born in Porto in 1980 and is a filmmaker. She is the director of the short film trilogy Weekend, Um Dia Frio, and Morning Light, as well as the documentaries Ama-San, In the Darkness of the Theater I Take Off My Shoes, Amor Fati, Kora, and There Will Be Elections. She premiered her first feature film, Wolf and Dog, at the 79th Venice Film Festival and received the top prize in the Giornate Degli Autori section. Her work, whether in film or photography, documentary or fiction, is characterized by a demanding political and poetic gaze, always combined with the intimacy she establishes with her characters.

Nuno Crespo
Nuno Crespo is a curator, art critic, researcher, and Dean of the School of the Arts at Universidade Católica Portuguesa. He holds a BA and a PhD in Philosophy from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. His research has focused on the intersections between art, architecture, and philosophy, as well as on the conditions and practices of critical thought. He has published essays on authors such as Adolf Loos, Aldo Rossi, Immanuel Kant, Peter Zumthor, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Walter Benjamin. His publications include critical studies on artists and filmmakers such as Adriana Molder, Aires Mateus, Axel Hütte, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Candida Höfer, Daniel Blaufuks, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Gerhard Richter, Luísa Cunha, Pedro Costa, Rui Chafes, and Vasco Araújo, among others. He is also the author of Corpo Impossível (2006), Wittgenstein e a estética (2011), Julião Sarmento: Olhar animal (2013), Textos Públicos. Arte Portuguesa Contemporânea 2003–2023 (2024), as well as other edited volumes. Extending his research activity into the public sphere, he works regularly as an art critic and has curated numerous exhibitions. He is the Chief Curator of the Art Cut Trienalle – Art Trienalle of Catholic Universities.