
Carlos Ruiz
Carlos Ruiz works in the field of cinema since 1990.
Carlos Ruiz Camona is a filmmaker and producer whose work spans various forms of cinematic expression, from fictional drama to observational documentary, with a strong presence at international festivals and a career built across Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Since the beginning of his career, he has demonstrated a particular sensitivity to stories that delve into intimacy, marginality, and human conflict, approached with a poetic, committed gaze, attentive to detail.
In the mid-1990s, he began to establish himself on the European scene with the film Rooftop, which won Best Screenplay at the Valencia International Film Festival and was distributed in Odeon cinemas in London. This early recognition set the tone for a career marked by artistic consistency and critical acclaim.
In 1999, he directed his first fiction feature film, To Anyone Who Can Hear Me, a work that traveled through various European festivals—from Taormina to Edinburgh, from Madrid to Figueira da Foz—winning the Grand Prize for Best Fiction Feature and the International Press Jury Award. This debut in feature-length format confirmed the maturity of his narrative approach, rooted in a restrained yet intense emotional dimension and a constant search for characters struggling with their own silences.
His relationship with cinema also extended into production, as demonstrated in 2001 with Shadows, a film selected for the International Film Festival of Rotterdam and premiered at the Columbia Tri-Star Preview Theatre in London. However, it was with the documentary Retrato, completed in 2004, that Carlos Ruiz Camona reached a new level of visibility and recognition. The film was screened at several international festivals—Taiwan, Ankara, Rome, DocLisboa, Helsinki, among others—and won the City of Madrid Award for Best Spanish Feature Film. Its visual and conceptual richness also earned it an Honorable Mention at the Tui Festival. Later, Retrato was selected by the Miguel Cervantes Institute for an international screening tour in cities such as Moscow, Shanghai, Stockholm, and Casablanca, and was also broadcast in 2013 on Eurochannel, reaching audiences across various global regions.
Moving between fiction and documentary observation, Ruiz Camona has continuously experimented and expanded his artistic vocabulary. In 2009, he released the drama Roots, which won the Prix Bracara Augusta at the Braga Independent Film Festival and was also awarded Best Short Film at the Minho International Film Festival. In the years that followed, between 2011 and 2015, the director increased his presence on television, developing a series of institutional and essayistic documentaries broadcast on RTP and other platforms, including titles such as A Study of Possibilities, A New Narrative for Europe, and The Dinner That Never Happened. During this same period, he also made films about the work of contemporary artists such as Rui Chafes, Alberto Carneiro, Susana Solano, and Didier Faustino, revealing a sensitive attention to materiality, artistic gesture, and the poetics of space.
In 2011, he directed the short film Greve, later shown on RTP2 and in Cinematheque venues in cities such as Valencia, Murcia, and Santiago de Compostela. This was followed in 2016 by the production of a television documentary series titled My Thesis, comprising thirteen episodes that showcase the thoughts, affections, and concerns of young researchers in Portugal. But it is with CRU—a film shot over nearly a decade in Porto and completed in 2017—that Carlos Ruiz Camona deepened an authorial approach marked by time, listening, and prolonged presence. The documentary had its world premiere in the International Competition of the DOK Leipzig festival and continued its run at events such as Visions du Réel in Switzerland and the Avanca International Film Festival, where it received an Honorable Mention in 2018.
Over the past decades, Ruiz Camona has crafted a cinema attuned to the social and the sensitive, combining an ethic of proximity with an aesthetic that values restraint, detail, and deep listening. In 2024, he completed his second fiction feature, The Falling Sky, a poetic representation of the enigmatic nature of desire, love, and the enduring pain of living with the consequences of our actions. The film premiered in November 2024 at the Caminhos do Cinema Português Festival, where it received an Honorable Mention from the Jury, and is now preparing for its international debut in 2025, with confirmed screenings in Italy and Norway. Its theatrical release is also scheduled for the coming year, marking a new chapter in the filmography of Carlos Ruiz Camona—a filmmaker who continues to affirm the importance of cinema as a space for listening, intimacy, and aesthetic resistance.
Awards
2024
Honour Mention at Outros Olhares Section
Caminhos do Cinema Português Film Festival
Coimbra, November
2018
Honour Mention
Avanca International Film Festival
July
2010
Best Documentary, Bracara Augusta Award
Bragacine Independent Film Festival
Minhoto Cinema Best Film
Filminho Minho International Film Festival
2006
Honourable Mention
Tui International Documentary Film Festival
Pontevedra
2005
Best Spanish Feature City of Madrid Award
Madrid International Documentary Film Festival
Spain, May
Best Director
Festival Internacional Independente de Braga – Braga Cine.
November
2001
Honour Mention
Famalicão International Video and Film Festival.
Portugal
1999
Best Feature film
Figueira da Foz International Film Festival
International Press Award
Figueira da Foz International Film Festival