About
Short Read.
b. 1992, Chapecó, Brazil. Based in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK).
João Lazaro is a filmmaker, editor and educator. Since 2015 he has made films with people as well as about them: school students and teachers, artisanal fishers, artists, researchers and film club members. His practice moves between documentary, short fiction, workshops and educational media, with a particular interest in:
- participatory and community filmmaking
- documentary and mockumentary
- learning through making media (educommunication)
Outcomes include short films, documentaries, workshop programmes, live broadcasts and educational video. He is currently developing doctoral research on how making films together shapes the way people learn.
Longer Read.
I started making films with other people before I made them on my own. In my first year of a Visual Arts degree at the University of the State of Santa Catarina (UDESC), I joined Educom.cine, a university extension programme that ran video and animation workshops in public schools. Over six years I delivered more than 50 workshops for over 200 students, teachers and community members, and directed and edited more than 12 short films with school students.
In 2017 I set up my own production company, João Lazaro Audiovisual, in Florianópolis. Over the next five years I edited documentaries, ran workshops, and produced and directed live broadcasts of academic conferences, including a six-day international puppetry conference broadcast in three languages. I also worked on two documentaries for the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF): one on Indigenous fishing in the Amazon, and a collaborative coverage of a seminar that brought fishing representatives from 16 countries to Ilha do Cardoso. Alongside this, I taught more than 20 media production workshops at the Santa Catarina Culture Foundation.
My own films came out of the same interest in people and how they talk about their lives. Livre Reportagem #3, an interview-based video art piece, received the Young Artists award (Contemporary Art in Santa Catarina) in 2018. The Holiday When Julia Was Without a Phone, a mockumentary, was selected for the I National Film Festival of Chapecó in 2021. In 2020 I received a Recognition Award for Cultural Trajectory under Brazil's Aldir Blanc scheme.
My MSc in Education (2019 to 2021) studied how educational media projects are managed, looking at how environmental organisations co-create media with communities. That research is the root of what I want to investigate next.
I moved to Newcastle in 2023. I volunteer as a technician and workshop instructor at Star and Shadow Cinema, and since 2025 I have been the elected Education Officer of Newcastle Film Club. Since January 2024 I have worked at Newcastle University in learning technologies and digital education, producing video, animation and web content with academics, clinicians and patient groups.
Outside work I cycle, watch a lot of films (the Coen Brothers are a constant), and log them on Letterboxd.
A note on my name: my legal name is João Lazzari. I keep João Lazaro as a legacy name, the one my earlier films and publications are credited under.