Miguel Gomes (born in 1972 in Portugal) studied Cinema at Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (ESTC). He began first as a film critic in the Portuguese press and published several articles related to the theory of Cinema. He then turned to filmaking directing a series of refreshingly eccentric short films that revealed his innate talents as a sensual visual stylist. Gomes’ early “musical comedies” offer important keys to his feature films by revealing the important inspiration of both musical cinema and the silent film to his uniquely playful and imaginative approach to narrative. The unique energy and puckish charm of Gomes’ little known debut, the Alice in Wonderland-meets-Jacque Rivette narrative puzzle, The Face That You Deserve, took the ludic tendencies of his cinema to a furthest extreme. The festival favorite My Beloved Month of August turned a new and important direction by responding to the “post-documentary” mode of innovative and unclassifiable non-fiction cinema.