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Directing · b. 1983 · Lisbon, Portugal
Chico Peres Smith is a filmmaker and media artist whose work interrogates the fragile boundaries between analog memory and digital decay. His practice—spanning experimental documentaries, lyrical shorts, and community-engaged cinema—examines how technologies mediate identity, migration, and collective memory.
Selected Works
Tomorrow Doesn’t Exist (2024)
A glitch-based interrogation of screen culture, structured as a triptych of decaying aspect ratios (9:16, 4:3, 16:9). The film’s handheld collage book becomes both subject and structural blueprint, questioning what survives when media erodes.
Fogo Frio (2024)
A haunting short film that traces the spectral edges of identity through contemplative imagery and destabilized soundscapes.
Tummo (2024)
A minimalist meditation on inner transformation, where abstract visuals and rhythmic editing evoke the heat of self-reinvention.
VDO-POEM: Lisbon Revisited (2010)
A hypnotic adaptation of Fernando Pessoa’s poetry, blending 16mm textures with digital artifacts to explore nostalgia’s fractures.
L’Île da Saudade (2017)
Edited a feature community-engaged documentary on oral histories of Montreal’s Portuguese diaspora, emphasizing the tactile preservation of migrant narratives.
Dead Dicks (2019)
As co-producer and editor, Smith helped shape this genre-bending horror feature into a Fantasia-premiered award winning exploration of mental health and sibling bonds.
Collaborative Practice
Smith’s work thrives in the liminal space between solitary creation and collective action. As co-organizer of Raindance Montreal, he builds bridges between experimental filmmakers and grassroots communities. His editorial collaborations (e.g., Dead Dicks) and participatory projects (e.g., Centre d’histoire de Montréal oral histories) reveal a commitment to cinema as both personal expression and social dialogue.
Education & Influences
A graduate of Lisbon Theatre & Film School, Smith’s methodology merges European avant-garde traditions with North American DIY ethos. His influences range from the media archaeology of Chris Marker to the community praxis of Agnès Varda, filtered through a post-internet lens.
Current Focus
Smith is developing new works that further explore:
The materiality of digital decay (glitch art)
Migrant narratives as sites of archival resistance
Handmade cinema (Archival 16mm/8mm, collage books) as a counterpoint to algorithmic culture.
