Dedicated exclusively to films in the Portuguese language, this competitive section highlights recent shorts and features and aims to promote and disseminate the Portuguese language in all its diversity, as well as the cinematographic practices of the various Lusophone countries.
CINEMA FALADO COMPETITION 2023
As Melusinas à Margem do Rio
Melanie Pereira, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 81’
Melusina is a mythical figure from European folklore, a freshwater mermaid characteristic of the myths and legends of Luxembourg. The "Melusinas" of the title are the five women, born in Luxembourg to immigrant families, who star in the debut feature film by director Melanie Pereira, who was also born and raised in Luxembourg, the daughter of Portuguese emigrants. What is it like to be a Luxembourger, when this is a country of immigrants? What is it like to be an immigrant in your own country? As Melusinas à Margem do Rio seeks to answer these questions by eulogising the chimerical nature of diasporic identities: an attempt to reconcile the fragments that make up their individuality.
A Shepherd's Tale
Carlos Martínez-Peñalver Mas, Spain, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 77’
Xoel is a "landscape phonograph". What does that mean? He specialises in collecting the sound elements that make up a landscape. In other words, a sound ethnologist. In À Procura da Estela, Galician director Carlos Martínez-Peñalver Mas accompanies Xoel on a journey through Serra da Estrela (the highest mountain range in Continental Portugal), in search of sounds that are in danger of extinction. However, he soon realises that tourism has silenced the past, leaving his project in a limbo. One day, however, a mysterious melody leads him back to the mountain. A breathtaking journey through one of the last national regions still immune to human presence; a way to look at the landscape with your eyes closed.
On That Day In Lisbon
Daniel Blaufuks, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 23’
Based on a few rolls of film abandoned by the cinematographer, and later Oscar winner for Best Cinematography, Eugen Schüfftan, in Lisbon, in 1940, this film, slows down the pace of a past day, as if it were possible to relive it. The director and photographer Daniel Blaufuks calls it "expanded photography". In addition to the suspension of the images, there is a sound suspension through the voice of the recently deceased actor Bruno Ganz, who puts us in the position of the refugees of the Second World War.
Astrakan 79
Catarina Mourão, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 64’
In 1979, Martim, a 15-year-old Portuguese boy, travelled alone to the Soviet Union. Today, aged 57, he remembers that one and a half year stay. His parents, Communist Party activists, thought he was going to a safe place, a society that lived up to all their ideals. But between the euphoria of adolescence and the disillusionment of the Soviet utopia, memories that Martim had never shared until this film, have lingered. Now he's doing it for his son, who is roughly the same age as he was. Catarina Mourão's new film is a confessional triptych about the secrets kept in the family.
Where Is Pessoa?
Leonor Areal, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 63’
Director and researcher Leonor Areal proposes a game: Where is Pessoa? Starting with a short film that records dozens of people leaving a theatre in Lisbon on a Sunday afternoon in 1913, the director sets out to scrutinise, frame by frame, millimetre by millimetre, the crowd in search of the poet Fernando Pessoa – of whom, until now, no moving image was known. Could Pessoa really have been there? The film investigates this possibility. The viewer will find their answer.
Verdade ou Consequência?
Sofia Marques, Portugal, DOC, 2023, 106’
After Ilusão (2014), in which she accompanied one of the last plays directed by Luís Miguel Cintra at Cornucópia Theatre, actress and director Sofia Marques returns to her friend's company. In Verdade ou Consequência? the director is looking for a familiar figure, while Luís Miguel Cintra is looking for another, different from himself. Each of these searches takes place among the traces of the past that fill the actor's house, through the films of Manoel de Oliveira and the poems of Ruy Belo, always with the city of Porto in the background.
Lindo
Margarida Gramaxo, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 90’
For over 20 years, Lindo hunted sea turtles on Principe Island. After an unexpected encounter with a remarkably gentle turtle, he decided to change his life and start protecting the animal from other predators. Now he delves into his past to search for clues that spark a debate about the island's future, leading to a reflection on the challenging balance between Man and Nature.
Vision of Paradise
Leonardo Pirondi, Brazil, 2022, DOC, 16’
Navigations to the "New World" pushed the boundaries of Western knowledge. The maps of the time mixed descriptions of geographical reality with imaginary mythologising. Vision of Paradise follows the voyage of the Brazilian Navy in search of a legendary island, allegedly found in 1483, to the west of Ireland. On the fine line between the real, the simulated and the imagined, the film reflects on the possibilities of virtual reality as a tool for giving "new worlds to the world".
Big Bang Henda
Fernanda Polacow, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 21'
Kiluanji Kia Henda is an Angolan artist whose work spans photography, video and performance. Much of Kia Henda's work deals with issues of the Portuguese colonial past from a perspective of the future, tearing down statues and symbols, building new memories and reversing power dynamics. Big Bang Henda is a documentary-poetry-manifesto about the artist's work, where you can immerse yourself in his anti-colonial creations and reflections.
2720
Basil Da Cunha, Portugal, 2023, FIC, 24'
2720 is the postcode for ‘Bairro da Reboleira’, the neighbourhood on the outskirts of Lisbon where director Basil da Cunha lives part of the year. He has been filming and working with this neighbourhood community for over a decade. Two generations run through the labyrinthine fabric of the neighbourhood: he's late for his first day at his new job, she's looking for her missing brother. Outside, the police are prowling. 2720 is an ode to the strength of the collective.
Extended Presences
Margaux Dauby, Belgium, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 12’
To deal with the terrible fate of forest fires, hundreds of men and women spend their summer days in watchtowers all over the country. In Ashes and Clouds, director Margaux Dauby follows the daily lives of a group of women, particularly Dina, Adriana and Helena. More than identifying a fire, this is a film about dedication to a cause, about loneliness and about contemplating the landscape.
Lucefece: Where there is no vision, the people will perish
Ricardo Leite, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 86’
After Ricardo Leite presented the beautiful As Maçãs Azuis (about the journey and films of Edila Gaitonde, an anti-colonial activist for the liberation of "Portuguese India") at the festival last year, he returns this year with a new feature film, Lucefece. Shot entirely on film over the last 20 years, which the director himself developed by hand, this is a film-essay in which the personal and the collective, the political and the intimate merge. Ricardo Leite draws on his childhood memories and cross-references them with conversations with his father, an ex-combatant in the colonial war who was later imprisoned. An autobiographical dive into the past and a portrait of a country haunted by the ghosts of war.
Samuel and the Light
Vinícius Girnys, Brazil, France, 2023, DOC, 71’
On Ponta Negra beach, in the municipality of Paraty, Brazil, people have always lived by candlelight, without electricity. With the arrival of the "Light for All" programme, initiated by the Federal Government in 2003, the daily life of the small community of Ponta Negra changes profoundly. Director Vinícius Girnys found his protagonist Samuel while filming the people of this village over six years (between 2016 and 2022)l. From the particular case of this child and his family, we follow the transformation of a small community's way of life with the arrival of electricity. And with it, the arrival of tourism.
