Margarida Leitão

Birth : 1976-04-23, Lisbon, Portugal

History

Margarida Leitão studied film in the Lisbon Theatre and Film School (ESTC). As a director made several short fiction films and documentaries that travelled through festivals worldwide and were exhibited on television. The award-winning films “A Ferida” (Wounded) and “Muitos Dias Tem o Mês” (Many days to a Month) had theatrical release. She also works regularly as editor and script supervisor for cinema and television.

Movies

Soldier Millions
Script Supervisor
A Portuguese soldier, who got stranded from his team during the La Lys battle, struggles by himself through dozens of German offensives so he can guarantee the safety of his companions.
Gypsophila
Cinematography
A woman decides to film her visits to her grandmother. In the quiet home, the camera captures the unique relation between these two women 50 years apart. With days passing by, the lines between film and life increasingly become blurred.
Gypsophila
Editor
A woman decides to film her visits to her grandmother. In the quiet home, the camera captures the unique relation between these two women 50 years apart. With days passing by, the lines between film and life increasingly become blurred.
Gypsophila
A woman decides to film her visits to her grandmother. In the quiet home, the camera captures the unique relation between these two women 50 years apart. With days passing by, the lines between film and life increasingly become blurred.
Gypsophila
Producer
A woman decides to film her visits to her grandmother. In the quiet home, the camera captures the unique relation between these two women 50 years apart. With days passing by, the lines between film and life increasingly become blurred.
Gypsophila
Director
A woman decides to film her visits to her grandmother. In the quiet home, the camera captures the unique relation between these two women 50 years apart. With days passing by, the lines between film and life increasingly become blurred.
Real Playing Game
Script Supervisor
In a future not too far away, Steve Battier, an elderly, terminally ill multi-millionaire, accepts the offer of a company - RPG - that in exchange for a high monetary sum, provides a very select group of clientèle the chance to be young again. For 10 hours, 10 millionaires from around the world, men and women of fame and power, are transferred to attractive and healthy younger bodies, to live in a world of temporary rejuvenation, in a game of real thrills, where every hour someone must die.
Face to Face
Director
"Face to Face" is a portrait of a youth that challenges itself and risk its life for tradition. They belong to a unique group of men who devote the best years of their youth to this group. The abide to the rules imposed by tradition and discipline of a hierarchy. Together they tesT the limits of their braveness and fear. In the arena, under the astound eyes of a silent audience, they put themselves to the test and risk their lives. In Portugal and in Mexico young forcados stand up to the bulls "face to face".
Zoo
Writer
A six-year-old girl once more silently witnesses a family break up. Her father comes back with an invitation for a day out.
Zoo
Director
A six-year-old girl once more silently witnesses a family break up. Her father comes back with an invitation for a day out.
Design Atrás das Grades
Director
From the tiny sewing studio in Tires Prison (Portugal) Vicky, Yau and Iracy hand-sew designer La.Ga handbags. Mothers separated from their children and families, imprisoned in a foreign country that they only get to know behind thick bars. In a mix of languages, we understand that time spent in this "factory" simply flies but in the cells the daily struggle goes on. Just like La.Ga, women also come out of prisons with a stamp. Can designer objects, sold from New York to Tokyo, contribute towards changing the lives of the women who produce them behind bars? In Venezuela we meet Yanetzi, an ex-inmate from Tires, now working 9 to 5 in an office. At night that she creates the bags that her son will sell in the streets of Caracas the following day. Design Behind Bars is an intimate portrait of the women's feelings towards life inside and outside the confines and how working with design changed them.
O Último Voo do Flamingo
Script Supervisor
Tizangara, Mozambique. After the peace agreement. A mystery. UN soldiers exploding. An investigation is begun and Massimo is appointed to solve the mystery. Joaquim will have to translate, not only the words but the facts, in order for him to understand.
Muitos Dias Tem o Mês
Director
A view of rising dependence to credits in the shadow of a overgrowing economical crisis in a consumers society.
Goodnight Irene
Script Supervisor
Two solitary men embark on a journey to find a missing woman...
Ngwenya, O Crocodilo
Editor
Flesh of My Flesh
Writer
A woman alone with her secret until one day she can not hold it any longer.
Flesh of My Flesh
Director
A woman alone with her secret until one day she can not hold it any longer.
Kiss Me
Editor
This movie bring us a story about a woman named Laura (Marisa Cruz) that lives in a small portuguese town during the 50's. Tired of living in such a small town she travells to a bigger town, in which she'll have the opportunity to feel free.
A Ferida
Writer
Nourished by pain, it corrupts the intimacy of a couple that has lost their child. The mother, Gracinda Nave, refuses to speak, transforming their home in a place of mourning where memories shatter lovers, ruining the relation with her husband, José Airosa. The original soundtrack is, in itself, a metaphor of how one can escape from grief, in a way the final duet symbolizes everything unsaid between them, through out the film. The director, Margarida Leitão, employs the symbology of a balloon, a puzzle and some drawings to create little flashes of a past filled with colour. A chromatic journey across the instants of another life when we could hear a child's laughter and the house was filled with joy. But now, the house is an empty space where the two lovers drift apart.
A Ferida
Director
Nourished by pain, it corrupts the intimacy of a couple that has lost their child. The mother, Gracinda Nave, refuses to speak, transforming their home in a place of mourning where memories shatter lovers, ruining the relation with her husband, José Airosa. The original soundtrack is, in itself, a metaphor of how one can escape from grief, in a way the final duet symbolizes everything unsaid between them, through out the film. The director, Margarida Leitão, employs the symbology of a balloon, a puzzle and some drawings to create little flashes of a past filled with colour. A chromatic journey across the instants of another life when we could hear a child's laughter and the house was filled with joy. But now, the house is an empty space where the two lovers drift apart.
The Ideal Woman
director
An exploration of gender stereotypes using archival family footage