Born on Faial and connected by family to Pico, Teresa Madruga has spent five decades moving through Portuguese and international cinema, television and voice acting. On January 9, 2027, MiratecArts will honor that remarkable journey during the Azorean Audiovisual Awards gala at the Auditório da Madalena on Pico Island.
Some careers are measured in roles; others eventually become part of a country’s cultural memory. Teresa Madruga belongs to both histories. Born on Faial in 1953 to a mother from Pico, the actress has appeared in more than one hundred films and television series since 1977 and has lent her voice to more than 80 animated characters. Now, as she reaches fifty years of artistic work, MiratecArts is bringing that long cinematic journey symbolically back to the islands from which it began.
The tribute will take place during the PAA – Azorean Audiovisual Awards on Saturday, January 9, 2027, at 4 p.m. at the Auditório da Madalena. For MiratecArts artistic director Terry Costa, the celebration is also personal. He remembers first seeing Madruga on the large screen during the 1980s in the films of Manoel de Oliveira, with whom she worked several times. When she received the 2025 SOPHIA Award for Best Supporting Actress for Luís Filipe Rocha’s O Teu Rosto Será o Último, Costa recalls feeling a sense of pride almost as if celebrating “a great friend, even family.” The award gave him the impetus to find a way to meet and honor her in the Azores.
Madruga’s filmography crosses several generations of Portuguese cinema. Beyond Manoel de Oliveira and Luís Filipe Rocha, she has worked in films directed by António Pedro Vasconcelos, João Botelho, João Canijo, João César Monteiro, João Mário Grilo, João Pedro Rodrigues, José Álvaro de Morais, Fernando Vendrell, Fernando Matos Silva, Fernando Lopes, António da Cunha Telles and Miguel Gomes, among others. In 2026, her image also reached the Cannes Film Festival through a film by Daniel Soares. It is a body of work that places an Azorean-born actress within some of the most important currents of contemporary Portuguese cinema.
Her career has also traveled well beyond Portugal. Her leading performance in Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner’s Dans la Ville Blanche earned her the Sete de Cinema award for Best Actress and contributed to international recognition that led to work in productions in Spain, France and Italy. She appeared alongside Marcello Mastroianni in Roberto Faenza’s Afirma Pereira. Her performance in Jean-Claude Robert’s D’Après Maria brought her the Best Actress award at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival; the film itself was also nominated for the British Academy Awards and France’s César Awards.
The Madalena celebration will not simply present an award and move onward. Terry Costa will hold a conversation with Madruga about her life and career, followed by a screening of Pedro Carneiro’s short film Judite, ou A Primeira Revolta. In this way, the event will connect memory with contemporary creation—an established actress looking back across fifty years while a new work reminds audiences that cinema remains an art continuously being reinvented.
The tribute will form part of a broader moment for Azorean audiovisual culture. Producers from the Azores may submit works created during 2025 and 2026 to the PAA until October 1, with awards covering forms ranging from music videos and series to fiction films and documentaries. The January program will also encompass MiratecArts’ 15th anniversary, the opening of the 13th Montanha Pico Festival, the Azorean Audiovisual Gathering and the second edition of the PAA.
For the Azores, Teresa Madruga’s anniversary carries a significance extending beyond the biography of one performer. Island cultural history is often written around those who remained physically close to the archipelago. Yet there is another Azorean cultural geography made by those whose work traveled outward and became part of larger national and international landscapes. Madruga belongs unmistakably to that geography.
Fifty years after she entered the profession, the cameras, directors, languages and countries have multiplied. But in January, cinema will perform one of its most beautiful gestures: it will bring the image home.
And this time, the screen will look back at Teresa Madruga from Pico.
based on a Press Release from MiratecArts. Photos from MiratecArts, Terry Costa Director.