Raquel Freire is a Portuguese filmmaker, screenwriter, author, producer, educator and activist. Born in Porto in 1973, her multidisciplinary practice explores 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.
Her film “Veneno Cura” earned actress Margarida Carvalho the SPA Award for Best Actress, while “Women of My Country” received an Honourable Mention at the Porto Femme International Film Festival and was presented in Oxford in 2024. She also directed the RTP1 trilogy “Stories of the Women of My Country” and co-directed, with Tainá Maneschy, the animated film “Women of My Country”, which premiered at MAAT.
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 “Transibericlove” and “Ulisseia”, and serves on the Advisory Board of “Portugal: Invisible and Unsubmissive: Leading Women in Portuguese and Spanish Cinema and Television”. She is also a founding member of MUTIM.
Her recent work includes her third feature film, “Film Without a Camera”. Her latest film, “Women of the Revolution”, premiered at IndieLisboa 2026, where it received both the Audience Award and the Amnesty International Award. She is also developing “Women of the Revolution” as a series.
