Diogo Simão

Born in Faro, in 1994. Diogo began his artistic career as an actor, having worked and studied, among others, with Lídia Franco, João de Brito, Bruno Schiappa, Pedro Monteiro, and Ana Cristina Oliveira. In 2014 he created the group MaisMacacos that took to the scene 3 pieces written and staged by himself.
Debuts in cinema in 2013 in the feature film “Porta 21” by director João Marco, working on more than 50 productions since then. Assumes the chair of director in 2015 with «(Dis) linked», short selected for the Caminhos Film Festival (Coimbra), Ozark Shorts (USA), Rock ‘n’ Roll Film Festival (Kenya) and a dozen more festivals. Since then he has made 5 films, having won a prize for best film making in Romania, featured in the Shortfilm Corner of the Festival de Cannes in 2018 and in dozens of festivals.
More recently he produced a trilogy of documentaries by director Ana Monteiro, recorded in Poland, Peru, and Portugal.
He has a degree in Communication Sciences from UAlg, with training at NFTS | National Film and Television School (London, England) and Ball State University (Indiana, USA).
In 2019, he was invited to join the team preparing the Faro candidacy for the European Capital of Culture in 2027.
He has been a producer/presenter of the Shortcutz Faro film festival since 2015, creator/producer of the ShortcutzWeek contest, film chronicler, and co-author of three books. He was a judge at the FARCUME 2016 festival, at the CurtaLisboa prize of the 48h Film Project in Lisbon 2019 and moderator of the masterclasses of Melissa Leo, Brian Muir and Stephen Warbeck at FEST – New Directors | New Films Festival, in 2017 and 2018.