José Padilha was born August 1st 1967 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Padilha has a bachelor degree in Business Economics at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Rio de Janeiro. He also attended Politic Economics, English Literature and International Politics in Oxford, England.
His first work in film was as Executive Producer of BOCA DE OURO, a fictional feature film that was theatrically released in Brazil and sold to HBO television in the US. His second film, which he wrote and produced, THE CHARCOAL PEOPLE had its US première at Sundance 2000, European premiére at IDFA 2000 and won Best Feature Documentary at the LA Latino International Film Festival 2000. Padilha also produced and directed two television documentaries for National Geographic Television: PANTANAL COWBOYS, which was awarded the 2004 Television Programming Award at the NY Festival, and FACING THE JAGUAR. He also produced and directed OS PANTANEIROS, for GNT, a Globo Network Television Channel.
BUS 174 was his first theatrical film he directed. The Director’s Guild of America honoured Padilha for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. The film won both the Publics Choice for Best Documentary and the FIPRESCI Critics Award for Best Brazilian Feature Film at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival 2002.
At the São Paulo International Film Festival in 2002 the film was awarded Best Documentary prize by the International Critics and Padilha won the award for New Documentary Director. BUS 174 had its US premiere at Sundance in 2002 and its European premiere at Rotterdam Film Festival in 2003, where it won a special mention by the Amnesty International Jury. In the US the film won the Best Documentary Grand Jury award at the Miami International Film Festival 2003, the Most Innovative Film award at the Chicago Documentary Film Festival 2003 and the Charles E. Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in 2003.
In Europe BUS 174 has won the Best International Premiere at the One World Media Awards in London, the Interfilm Academy award at the Munchen Film Festival 2003, Best Documentary at Mediawave in Hungary, and Best Documentary at the Copenhagen Film Festival. The film was also awarded Best Documentary at the Nuevo Cinema Latino Americano Festival in Havana and the Emmy Award 2005.
Padilha produced the documentary ESTAMIRA that premiered at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival in October 2004 and was awarded the prize for Best Documentary.
ELITE SQUAD, marks the first film in which he directed, produced and wrote. In 2007, he also produced and directed the short documentary CHARCOAL for Live Earth, Al Gore’s NGO.
The Weinstein Company
