Pedro Costa is one of the most distinctive filmmakers in contemporary global art cinema. Since the late 1980s, he has directed a body of work that is easy to recognise but difficult to explain. From the outset, the visual, thematic and narrative characteristics of his oeuvre convey an evolving yet coherent filmic universe which is at once austere, highly stylised and cryptic. The making of his films likewise suggests the stoicism and artistry of an uncompromising filmmaking ethos. From the late 1990s onwards, Costa's films have been produced through a digital video low-budget filmmaking process which relies on protracted collaborations with non-professional actors recruited largely from the poor suburbs of Lisbon. Inevitably, reception discourses around the Portuguese filmmaker commonly make a bridge between the aesthetic characteristics and the production conditions of his films. Costa is commonly characterised as an obsessive and slow filmmaker, fiercely independent and having a mercurial relationship with producers.

Over the years, Costa has become one of the most internationally celebrated Portuguese filmmakers, alongside his compatriots Manoel de Oliveira, João César Monteiro and, more recently, Miguel Gomes and João Pedro Rodrigues. Whilst accruing critical esteem and the support of a burgeoning international fan base, Costa's exposure remains limited to cinephile fringes around the art-house and film festival circuits. Moreover, and as with other contemporary filmmakers catering mostly to boutique cinephiles, his creative output also finds receptive audiences on a variegated international circuit composed of academic-related venues, art galleries and museums. Costa's reception, however, remains mixed and his films provoke praise and derision in equal measures.