Throughout the month of February, Porto/Post/Doc will develop in Braga a set of activities linked to cinema as part of the ATLAS project, a program that aims to boost participation, inclusion, interculturality and multiculturalism, civic engagement and sustainability through artistic creation.
In this program, Porto/Post/Doc invites you to discover a new, critical and artistically ambitious cinema, with emphasis on new forms of non-fiction cinema. The vitality of cinema du reel - the means par excellence for describing the world in its extraordinary complexity and acting on it through the connection of multiple points of view - is perhaps more urgent than ever.
In this extension to Braga, PPD brings a selection of some of the best films screened in Porto in November 2023, seeking to reflect on one of the most relevant themes of the year 2024, the celebration of half a century of the beginning of Democracy and Freedom in Portugal, through the realities of several generations: contemporary Portuguese cinema and diasporas, and cinema from other places of political and cultural resistance. The cultural diversity of the chosen films seeks to x-ray the world's turmoil, sometimes from an intimate and purely subjective perspective, sometimes from their revolutionary possibilities.
Children and youngsters will also be able to think about Freedom through the moving image, whether through a film program designed by School Trip, the festival's educational project, or at the creative residency Passos pelo Conservatório which, in partnership with Escola Artística Conservatório de Música Calouste Gulbenkian, aims to be a collective and multifaceted portrait of the day-to-day lives of young musicians, made by themselves, in one of the most important cultural institutions in the city.
CINEMA SESSIONS FOR THE GENERAL AUDIENCE
SESSION #1 - 26 FEB 2024, 9:30 pm
Rubab, Marta Vaz (ESTC) Portugal, 2023, DOC, 18’
Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, music has been banned in the country. The only music school in Kabul took refuge in Lisbon and one hundred of its students were received at the National Conservatory. This is a portrait of their adaptation.
A los libros y a las mujeres canto, María Elorza, Spain, 2022, DOC, 72’
In this film, “literature” rhymes with “women”. Director María Elorza's first feature film is an ode to four women who found the pleasure of books and reading a form of resistance to ignorance and fanaticism. One of them had a library in the back seat of the car, another broke a finger when a bookshelf fell on top of it and another was reading to workers in the tobacco industry. A set of stories that are told to us through a multitude of materials (interviews, archive images, photographs, paintings, family films, songs and film excerpts) with a simple aim: to reveal the civilizing role of women in society contemporary.
SESSION #2 - 27 FEB 2024, 9:30 pm
Bye Bye Tibériade, Lina Soualem, France, Belgium, Palestine, Qatar, DOC, 2023, 80’
Actress Hiam Abbass made her film career between France and the United States. She worked with Spielberg in Munich or with Denis Villeneuve in Blade Runner 2049, and is best known for her role as Marcia Roy in the series Succession. For the sake of her career, she left her family and her country at the age of 23, but years later she began visiting her home village in Palestine, together with her daughter, Lina Soualem. The daughter would become a director and based on family films made during the summer holidays, she created Bye Bye Tibériade, an intimate documentary that describes the meeting of four generations of women and their stories of separation.
SESSION #3 - 28 FEB 2024, 9:30 pm
2720, Basil Da Cunha, Portugal, 2023, FIC, 24'
2720 is the postal code of Bairro da Reboleira, a place on the outskirts of Lisbon where director Basil da Cunha lives part of the year. The director has been filming and working with the community of Reboleira residents for over a decade. Two generations run through the labyrinthine fabric of the neighborhood, he is late for his first day at his new job, she is looking for her missing brother. Outside, the police are around. 2720 is an ode to the strength of the collective.
Between Revolutions, Vlad Petri, Romania, Croatia, Qatar, Iran, 2023, DOC, 68’
Zahra and Maria met at university while studying medicine in Bucharest in the late 1970s. Zahra returns to her home country, Iran, and Maria stays in Romania. From then on, an exchange of letters began that accompanied the deposition of the Shah and the consequent Islamic revolution and, in parallel, the progressive degradation of the Soviet empire and the opening to Western values. Two women and two countries heading in opposite directions. Director Vlad Petri tells this story entirely using archival footage; a story of friendship, revolutionary verve, feminist insubordination, disillusionment and longing.
*SESSION OVER 6 YEARS OLD - 27 FEB 2024, 10:30 am
A Gaivota, Gabriel Hénot-Lefèvre, France, 2022, 14’
Colegas de Casa Selvagens, Armelle Mercat-Junot, France, 2022, 15’
O Porco, Jorn Leewerink, France, Switzerland, 2019, 6’
*SESSION OVER 9 YEARS OLD - 28 FEB 2024, 10:30 am
Código Rosa, Romain Seisson, Taye Cimon, Sandra Leydier, Pierre Coëz, Manuarri Morel, Julie Groux, França, 2022, 5’
Xiaohui e as Suas Vacas, Xinying Lao, China, 2023, 15’
Fora de Pista, Léo Brunel, Loris Cavalier, Camille Jalabert, Oscar Malet, França, 2018, 6’
*SESSION OVER 12 YEARS OLD - Docs4Teens - 29 FEB 2024, 10:30 am
Docs4Teens – Building Bridges is a network of four European festivals, Krakow Film Festival (Poland), Festival dei Popoli (Italy), FIPADOC (France), Docudays UA (Ukraine) and Porto/Post/Doc (Portugal). The network's strong conviction is that documentary cinema is an irreplaceable and unique way of learning about our world and proposes a selection of films that reflect on topics that, today, force young people to reflect on their actions and their political importance on issues such as war, climate change and equality; above all, they awaken in them the desire to speak out and be active in their communities.
Docs4Teens SESSION #1
Children Of The Border, Janne Vasarainen, Estonia, 2022, 17’, FIPADOC
How can we try to describe what is going on in the heads of the children, who flee on a bus full of Ukrainian refugees to Finland?
Dreaming Arizona, Jon Bang Carlsen, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, 2022, 76’, Krakow Film Festival
Where does the dream begin and reality end? In Dreaming Arizona, this is the question for both the main characters and the viewer. Known for his staged documentaries, Danish director Jon Bang Carlsen has five American teenagers from a small town in Arizona act out their own lives – past, present and future.
Docs4Teens SESSION #2 - 29 FEB 2024, 2:30 pm
The Unicorn In Snowpants Suddenly Ran Off, Philipp Schaeffer, Germany, 2022, 19’, FIPADOC
The film explores the clash between the playful worlds of blind children and the reality in which they live. It presents us with three confident children, for whom blindness is not a disability, but a different kind of normality. Unicorns, call centers and flying grandparents play a role
important.
Girls' Stories, Aga Borzym, Poland, 2023, 60’, Krakow Film Festival
Girls' stories, teenage days. It seems like nothing happens, but there are so many changes. Jagoda and Zuzia are friends from the neighborhood. They are found in the local square. Sometimes they go for ice cream or go to the playground. And they always have a lot to talk about. Being a girl is a special experience.
Girls’ Stories was awarded the Teenage Jury prize at Porto/Post/Doc 2023.
PASSOS PELO CONSERVATÓRIO - Creative workshop
12th to 23rd February, Escola Artística Conservatório de Música Calouste Gulbenkian
The creative workshop 'Passos Pelo Conservatório' is a workshop aimed at Secondary Education, which aims to be a collective portrait of theEscola Artística Conservatório de Música Calouste Gulbenkian of Braga from the perspective of its students, in an act of sharing their experience of the conservatory and everyday stories that can extend to the neighborhood, street, square, the city of Braga, and where there will also be a reflection on the theme of freedom.
