Raquel Freire is a Portuguese film director, screenwriter, author, producer, educator, and activist. Born in Porto in 1973, her multidisciplinary work explores themes of identity, politics, gender, and social justice.
Her films—”Red River”, “Ripping”, “This Is My Face”, “Poison Heals”, “Dreamocracy”, “L’Académie”, “By Alice’s Hand”, “Women of My Country”, “Diferentness”, and “Guardians of the Word”—have premiered at major international festivals including Venice, Turin, São Paulo, Montreal, Clermont-Ferrand, Porto/Post/Doc, Porto Femme, Política, and Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin. Her work has been screened in cinemas and broadcast on television in Portugal and France.
Raquel’s film “Veneno Cura” earned actress Margarida Carvalho the SPA Award for Best Film Actress, and “Women of My Country” received an Honorable Mention at the Porto Femme International Film Festival before its international premiere in Oxford in 2024. She also directed the trilogy “Stories of the Women of My Country” for RTP1 and co-directed the animated version of “Women of My Country” with Tainá Maneschy, which premiered at MAAT.
In addition to film, Raquel has directed music videos for Fado Bicha, including “Woman from the End of the World” and “Lisbon, Don’t Be Racist”. She is the author of two books, “Transibericlove” and “Ulisseia”, and a contributor to numerous articles and essays.
She serves on the Advisory Board of “Portugal: Invisible and Unsubmissive: Leading Women in Portuguese and Spanish Cinema and Television”, a collaboration between the University of Exeter and the University of Oxford, and is a founding member of MUTIM (Women Workers of the Moving Image).
Raquel has directed 19 films to date. She recently completed her third feature film, “Film Without a Camera”, and is currently working on her next project, “Women of April”, as well as developing the new series “Women of April”.