Sara Gouveia is a renowned filmmaker, celebrated for her visually striking films that expertly blur the lines between fiction and reality. Her impressive educational background includes alumni status at the Durban Film Mart, IDFA Summer School, Hot Docs Blue-Ice Lab, and Berlinale Talents 2022.
Sara's debut feature-length documentary, "The Sound of Masks", premiered at IDFA 2018 and received widespread acclaim. Africa is a Country described it as "a visual meditation on the nature of memory in postcolonial societies". The film went on to be selected for numerous prestigious film festivals, including the Marrakech International Film Festival 2018, Hot Docs 2019, New York African Film Festival 2019, the Durban International Film Festival, and DocLisboa 2019, among others.
The film garnered several awards and nominations, including the Best Feature Documentary award at the Plateau International Film Festival 2019, the 14th SAFTA Golden Horn Award for Best Cinematography, and SAFTA nominations for Best Feature Documentary and Best Editing in 2020. In 2021, the film received the awards for Best International Feature and Best Direction at the 7th Brasil Festival of International Cinema.
Sara's subsequent documentary, "Mother to Mother", premiered at the 2020 Encounters SA International Documentary Film Festival, where it was praised as "an engaging and thought-provoking work of cinema that expands our collective humanity". The film received second place in the Adiaha Award for best documentary film, as well as nominations for Best Documentary Feature, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound during the 2021 SAFTAs. Additionally, it won the Writers Guild of South Africa Muse Award for Best Documentary Script 2020.
Sara's most recent short film, "Like Water", has been officially selected for the 2021 Encounters South African International Documentary Festival, MUICA 2021 in Colombia, NYPSFF 2021 in the USA, and Africa in Motion in Scotland.
Currently, Sara is in development with her feature film, "Requiem of Ravels' Bolero", which was pitched at the Durban Film Mart 2021. She is also the director of photography for the documentary "We, People of the Islands", set in Cape Verde.
