Tânia Dinis


Tânia Dinis (b. 1983, Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal) is an artist and filmmaker whose work in photography, performance, film, installation, and relational aesthetics explores personal and public intimacy and the image as an experience of the ephemerality of time. Her practice places particular focus on the family archive.

As an actress, Dinis has appeared in several films, including To The Wolf of Madragoa (Pedro Bastos, 2012), The Scoundrel (Paulo Abreu, 2012), Low Tide (Pedro Flores, 2012), and Ornament and Crime (Rodrigo Areias, 2015). Her films have been screened at Mexico City International Film Festival, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Sao Paulo International Film Festival, and Another Experiment by Women Film Festival (AXW), among other venues. She lives and works in Porto, Portugal.




Teresa, Tânia Dinis, Portugal, S8mm︎digital, 5 min, 2017

Teresa evokes a memory. A memory as a place of resistance. A memory suspended in space and time. A place one can return to. The fragmented image of an intimate record. The impression of moments forgotten in time but ready to emerge from oblivion—moments that allow us to build a possible history: the history we want to see.
–Tânia Dinis




Não são favas, são feijocas, Tânia Dinis, Portugal, S8mm︎digital, 10 min, 2013

Intergenerational conflict between people who live in and for the countryside. Images clash with the individuals they represent. A portrait of the artist and her grandmother.



Co-presented with Three Fold. Image credits: all artworks, stills, and portraits courtesy of the artist © Tânia Dinis.
Back to Media City Film Festival: Spotlight Series
Read next: Doom and Glory in the Cass Corridor: A Dossier on Cay Bahnmiller






Founded in 2020, Three Fold is an independent quarterly based in Detroit that presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film and the performing arts. We solicit and commission contributions from artists, writers, and activists around the world. Three Fold is a publication of Trinosophes Projects, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in the historic Eastern Market neighborhood in downtown Detroit. Click here to check out Three Fold’s events page and view a schedule of the publication’s on-site activities.

Three Fold recognizes, supports, and advocates for the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally-recognized Indian nations, for historic Indigenous communities in Michigan, for Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and for those who were forcibly removed from their Homelands. We operate on occupied territories called Waawiiyaataanong, named by the Anishinaabeg and including the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Bodewatomi (Potawatomi) peoples. We hold to commit to Indigenous communities in Waawiiyaataanong, their elders, both past and present, and future generations.