João Ribeiro is a Mozambican director and producer. His parents were from Cape Verde and he was born in the province of Zambézia (Mozambique). In Quelimane (Zambézia, Mozambique), he was the delegate of National Institute of Cinema, managing 5 cinemas and, as a hobby, he started working with photography and video. In 1987, he moved to Maputo where he started working as the Head of Archives of the National Institute of Cinema and later on as the Production Coordinator. He graduated in Movie and Television production at the Superior School of Cinema and Television (San António de los Baños, Cuba). At the end of his course, he produced his first short film called Fogota. In Mozambique he joined the production company Ebano Multimedia and directed his second short film: O Olhar das Estrelas (The look of the Stars), which was a part of the first fiction series produced by SABC (South Africa Broadcast Corporation) with other African countries with Love as a theme, called African Dreaming (1997). In 2000, Joao Ribeiro started the independent production company COOL. With COOL, he produced an important documentary called A Miner's Tale for the series Steps for The Future  about HIV/AIDS, co-produced by more than 15 TV channels from different countries. After long years away from cinema, Joao Ribeiro produced his first movie based on Mia Couto´s novel entitled: O Último Voo do Flamingo (The Last Flight of the Flamingo, 2010). The movie had the premier at the Cannes Festival and was selected for the biggest cinema festivals, becoming the first Mozambican movie with commercial success outside Mozambique (Portugal, Brazil, Spain, France).