Whether Rita is a storyteller by nature or nurture is uncertain. Yet, she can hardly recall a life without stories at its core.

Her narrative film THE COOP ’2021 premiered at the Lincoln Film Center in New York and won the IATSE ICG Emerging Cinematographer Award, highlighting the cinematography of the short screened on 4 continents.

In 2019, Rita won a Fulbright Scholarship to complete her MFA in Directing at the College of Motion Picture Arts in the United States of America, where she also taught screenwriting. Four years prior, she had also been the winner of the 1st Portuguese American Postgraduate Society summer scholarship.

Rita also works as an assistant director (House of Dragons, Fast & Furious X), a commercial editor (NZME, Cuetone Media, Ave Rara), and a content creator (FIFA’s World Cup).

She was selected as one of the New Faces of the Creative Industries by the H Club in London, and selected to participate in the Storytelling Masterclass at the Google headquarters, leading her work to be featured on NOWNESS. Rita was also the winner of the BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE 2019 Future Film Festival’s video competition.

Rita is interested in creating pieces of absurd humor between reality and fiction that find solace in authenticity.