Joana Alves, now based in Lisbon, grew up in a small village in rural Portugal. She studied Film at the University of Beira Interior in Covilhã and complemented her studies with a Postgraduate Degree in Directing at RESTART, in Lisbon.
In 2016 she was nominated for the Sophia Student Awards, with her short film “Crime Perfeito”. She was also the winner of the LG OLED TV 4K Challenge with “Cavalos Brancos”, a music video she directed for Manuel Fúria e Os Náufragos.
Since 2017, she has collaborated with the production company beActive as an assistant director on projects for Cinema and Television, including the feature film “Gabriel” (2019), nominated for the 2019 Sophia Awards of the Portuguese Cinema Academy in the Best Actor and Best Original Song categories, and the series “A Família Ventura” (2017), nominated for the 2018 Sophia Awards in the Best TV Series category.
In 2021 she was also a partner of Comic Con Portugal, as a creator of TV and Cinema digital content.
Recently, and also through beActive, she produced the television film “Colégio do Templo: Paramnésia” (2022), and in January 2023, she premiered on SIC Radical “#SemFiltro”, a mockumentary written and directed by her about the Instagram generation. It had the support of ICA, the portuguese Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual, and the Creative Europe/Media program. It was also one of the five projects selected for the “Short-Form Series” program of the 4th edition of Conecta Fiction Reboot 2020, held in Pamplona, Spain.
Her latest project, a short film that will be filmed in the rural interior of Portugal, is currently in pre-production.