Having passed away on January 29th, aged 68, João Canijo leaves a legacy of films that, in a truly original way, punctuate the last four decades of Portuguese cinema.
Maintaining a constant relationship with the values of representation, well expressed in the careful investment in the work of its interpreters, Canijo was also, for this very reason, an author sensitive to the relationships between cinema and elements of a theatrical nature. In fact, he had completed a film titled Stagingwhich is announced, precisely, as the portrait of a theater director, played by Miguel Guilherme — according to a press release released at the time of filming, in August 2025, by Midas Filmes, the film’s producer, the central character “prepares a new play, confronted with age and the relationship with his actresses”.
Blood of My Blood (2011), a family drama dominated by female characters — also a social perspective on the ways of life in a suburban area of greater Lisbon —, can be taken as an exemplary symbol of the creative logic of Canijo’s work. First of all, because in it we find, in the main roles, some of the actresses who feature throughout his filmography: Rita Blanco, Anabela Moreira and Cleia Almeida; later, because it is a project that, in parallel, generated Actress Work, Actor Worka documentary “variation” focused on the working relationship between Blood of My Blood and the director.
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