Francisco Lacerda is a Portuguese-American director/argumentist, created in S. Miguel in the Azores. He is one of the creators of the cult and midnight short films Teeth and Claws! and Teeth and Claws 2, both nomads for the Méliès D' Argent Award at the Lisbon Horror Film Festival - MOTELX, and were consequently acquired for international distribution by the legendary Troma Entertainment. In 2017, Francisco co-wrote and co-directed with Francisco Lopes the short film Freelancer, which proved to be a success with international audiences and won the First Prize (Best Short Film) at the Horrorvision festival in Spain. He was the editor of the feature film debut of director Fernando Alle, Mutant Blast, which debuted internationally in over 30 film festivals and won 10 awards. During the twelfth edition of the MOTELX Film Festival the term "Azoresploitation" was coined to describe the cinematographic works of Francisco Lacerda as a unique sub-genre of Portuguese cinema exploitation/splatter made only in the Azores Archipelago and by Azorean artists. Francisco has a degree in Sound and Image (Image branch) having completed the course at Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha in mainland Portugal, and is a huge fan of cult and horror cinema from the 70s and 80s.