DAVID J AMADO
FILM
Working across experimental cinema, dance film, and moving image, my works construct atmospheric and embodied visual narratives that translate choreography into cinematic language, engaging themes of migration, intimacy, memory, and vulnerability.
THE WATER CARRIES ME
A ÁGUA ME LEVA is an experimental short film that explores displacement through a hybrid language of choreography and cinema. Combining movement, atmospheric imagery, and fragmented narrative structures, the film reflects on memory and emotional landscapes within diasporic experience.
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Year: 2026
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Duration: 8 min
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Director, Screenwriter, Choreographer: David J. Amado
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Cinematography: Dércio Tomas Ferreira
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Executive Producer: Rada Studios
VELVETEEN
VELVETEEN is a dance film inspired by The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, exploring the deep human desire to be seen and accepted as we truly are. The film follows a Black queer man’s journey from self-repression and internalised shame toward self-recognition and embodiment.
Through choreography, movement, and poetic narration, VELVETEEN moves through ancestral trauma, racism, and homophobia, tracing a path toward healing, community, and self-acceptance. The film transforms dance into a cinematic language of emotional and bodily transformation, reflecting on what it means to become “real” through lived experience.
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Year: 2021
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Duration: 34 min
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Director, Screenwriter, Choreographer: David J. Amado
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Cinematography: Wilson Sanches
TRUE COLORS
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Year: 2022
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Duration: 6 min
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Director, Screenwriter: David J. Amado
TRUE COLORS is a fashion film exploring Black queer men’s relationship to masculinity and the social pressures that shape self-expression. The work examines how heteronormative expectations encourage conformity, silence, and the masking of identity.
The film traces a journey from repression toward bold authenticity. Each act represents a different stage of transformation, using movement, styling, and visual composition to reveal the tension between visibility, performance, and self-definition.
Ascension
Ascension is a short experimental moving image work presented as a visual diary on dance, healing, and self-transformation. The film reflects on the role of dance in David J. Amado’s journey toward self-love and self-acceptance, weaving together memory, dream, and embodied experience.
Ascension explores how movement becomes a space of empowerment, tracing the emotional and physical states that emerge when the body is fully inhabited through dance.
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Year: 2022
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Duration: 3 min
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Directors: Janis Brod, David J. Amado
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Cinematography: Janis Brod
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Screenwriter: David J. Amado