Simão Cayatte

Simão Cayatte is a writer and director born in 1984 in Lisbon into a Portuguese/Finnish family.

He studied theatre and live-art at Goldsmiths University in London and film at Columbia University in New York, where he later also worked as a script development trainee at Darren Aronofksy’s Protozoa Pictures. He has directed multiple shorts including “A Viagem” (The Trip), selected at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival Cinefóndation and “Menina” (Young Lady), selected by Les César Les Nuits en Or programme as one of the top European short films of 2017. His practice as an actor has had a strong influence on his writing as well as his work with actors.

His first feature film “Vadio” (Drifter), a Portuguese co-production with France and Poland developed at the 2017 edition of LIM | Less is More premiered at the Lisbon Film Festival 2022 and was since awarded at several international film festivals. He recently directed the TV series “Vanda” produced by Legendary Pictures, La Panda and SPi which was selected for the Berlinale Series Selects 2022. He combines his work as filmmaker with his practice as script-consultant. In 2024, he is preparing his second feature film, produced by Leopardo Filmes.