João Queiroga

João Queiroga is a Portuguese director, performer, and educator whose practice moves between documentary and performance. His work explores erasure, resilience, identity, and belonging, often centring marginalized voices and stories that are too often overlooked. His films have screened at festivals including IDFA, Hot Docs, BFI Flare, and DocLisboa, and are known for their hybrid forms and attention to underrepresented perspectives.

He began performing as a child actor in Portuguese television and theatre. At 17, he moved to India to continue his education, and later studied at the University of Auckland and Peking University. He holds a BA in Communication, Cinema, and Theater from Lake Forest College and an MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University, with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Hoffman Foundation, Davis UWC, and Fulbright.

His professional work spans filmmaking, curation, and education. He has collaborated with Cinema/Chicago, the Chicago International Film Festival, and Chicago Filmmakers, worked on assignments for WGN-TV, the Beijing International Movie Festival, and the Cannes Film Festival, and served as an editor and cinematographer for Fortune 500 companies. Formerly a Department Chair at the New York Film Academy, he is now Associate Professor and Chair of the Film + Design Minor at Northwestern University in Qatar.