2008 Serpa
    With the presence of
Landscape, the work of time

Landscape as one of the possible key elements to analyse the whole movement of modern cinema and some of its present-day radical experiences. Landscape as crossroads of different contemporary arts – and thus as a reminder of the potential avant-garde role that, once and again, can be played by the documentary practice. Landscape because landscape is in itself “look”, “space”, “time”. Landscape as passageway, either between different times or different ways of seeing – the place that undergoes change and the place where our way of seeing changes. Landscape, also, as the ground for different levels of narration. Landscape and labour; landscape and memory, landscape and History. Finally, and precisely against a possible bucolic trend, landscape as the land of impatience, or tension between what we see and what underlies it, between what shows and what hides, order and chaos, reason and insanity.

17 June, Tuesday
Session #1, night
Pour Le Mistral
1965, 30 min
Joris Ivens

Between Chile and Vietnam, Joris Ivens , ‘the filmmaker of wars and revolutions’ made For the Mistral, the first of two films around the idea of capturing what can’t be seen: the wind. Directed as a tour de force in cinematography and editing, the film tries to make the wind visible and tangible. For the Mistral starts in black and white, continues in colour and ends in cinemascope, so to show the power of the Mistral wind, that blows in the south of France. The original script was much more elaborate and ambitious, but the contingencies of production made it what Ivens himself called ‘an unfinished sketch’. However, none of its strength is retired, experimentalism being one of its conditions.

Banditi a Orgosolo
1969, 98 min
Vittorio De Seta

A Sardinian shepherd is wrongly suspected of theft and murder. We follow his long flight through impervious and arid landscapes, towards the isolated grazing land of Barbagia, as he loses all the sheep in his flock. One night, in desperation, he enters another shepard’s fold and, holding him at gunpoint, takes away all his sheep: he then becomes an actual outlaw. Beauty springs from ruthless precision – De Seta simply reveals power relations and points to the causes of his rebellion. As Jean Douchet put it, “nothing is a priori a pleasant sight to see. Not the characters nor the sheep, not even the landscapes are destined to please. But, in accordance with Visconti’s idea, De Seta reveals their original greatness with fine and simple images. Under his Virgilian appearance, De Seta invites us to condemn an order of things which allows the degradation of a natural order.”

18 June, Wednesday
Session #2, morning
Lu Tempu de li Pisci Spata
1954, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Surfarara
1955, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Contadini del Mare
1955, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Parabola D'oro
1955, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Pasqua in Sicilia
1955, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Pescherecci
1958, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Un Giorno in Barbagia
1958, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Pastori di Orgosolo
1958, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

O Tapete Voador
2008, 56 min
João Mário Grilo

It was through Portugal that the Persian carpet found its way into Europe, establishing itself as one of the most important cultural traditions in the West, as far as decorative arts are concerned. 500 years later, we have returned to Iran to reveal its original manufacturing gestures and the hypnotic shapes and colours that still retain all their freshness and fascination. The film is structured in four journeys + one, from geometry to nature, from knotting to ‘abrash’ (the natural mode of color variation). In reality, however, this is a film about itself, and perhaps about art in general and its infinite and immemorial landscapes. In the end, we will reveal the mystery of the true ‘flying carpet’, the one through which so many people have ‘flown’, as today one flies through the screen (moving carpet) and its magical powers.

Debate with João Mário Grilo
18 June, Sunday
Session #3, afternoon
L'aménagement du Territoire
2006, 45 min
Jean Breschand

The film is made of photographs projected against a bed sheet and then re-shot. Breeze, mist, drizzle: essentially atmospheric, the effects performed live over the images during the shooting, restore their atmosphere and reverie. The film tells a love story that slides between the sheets of cities under the skies of May. We know that at the bottom of the beds there’s a whurring a pre-historic world.

The Sky Is My Ceiling
2006, 11 min
Keja Ho Kramer

A boy is looking for open space in a densely populated city to build a flying machine that will carry him away. He leaves his neighborhood to attempt a voyage that will bring him to the city’s end. After days and nights of travel, when he arrives to something which resembles open space, nobody believes him. The film correlates the surreal vision of the short story by J.G. Ballard ‘The Concentration City’ and the actual urban situation of São Paulo.

Debate with Jean Breschand and Keja Ho Kramer
18 June, Wednesday
Session #4, afternoon
La Vallée Close
1995, 140 min
Jean-Claude Rousseau

It is a cosmic film, first because it shows the cycles of nature, but also because the motifs of the micro and the macro resemble each other (the bed sheets and the clouds, for example), and finally because each shot accomplishes a cycle, be it because objects in continuous rotation appear in it (a windmill), be it because the phenomenon shown eventually produces a feeling of rotation and of endless flow-renewal (a torrent, at the same time very agitated and still). There is the idea that, as long as something is looked at with a little attention, one can see the whole of the world’s mystery develop, in the photographic sense. – Emmanuel Burdeau

Une Vue Sur L'autre Rive
2005, 24 min
Jean-Claude Rousseau

In the unchanging landscape, the river’s water precedes the passer-by’, that is how Jean-Claude Rousseau describes the film. This ‘view of the other riverbank’ (of a river that flows into the ‘closed valley’ of the homonymous film) consists of a single static shot, where human movement and the rhythms of nature come together without solving the enigma of their destiny.

Debate with Jean-Claude Rousseau
19 June, Thursday
Session #5, morning
Venise N'existe Pas
1984, 11 min
Jean-Claude Rousseau

The attempt to create an image: the vision framed by an open window allows us to catch a glimpse of the boats going by, until their nocturnal disappearance; the closed window takes in the light of the morning sun, penetrating the room; the figure of the filmmaker is doubled in the mirror; a postcard provides an illusion of opening. This film is simultaneously a miniature and a matrix for all of Rousseau’s following work.

Trois Fois Rien
2006, 78 min
Jean-Claude Rousseau

Intertwining three previous films – Faibles Amusements, Contretemps, Comme une Ombre Légère – now brought together in a feature film, Rousseau resumes the themes of travel, wait and absence to renew his cinema with the tools of digital video. If the journey was never actually shown in his films, the filmmaker now travels through the two times-movements of a circular itinerary (back and forth), revisiting the places, ideas and forms of resonance, of circle and orbit, where visual and sonic elements find their place of gravitation within the film.

Nocturno
2007, 27 min
João Nisa

A fragmentary description of the abandoned area of Lisbon’s old fair ground, in the period between its closing and its ultimate demolition. A set of long static shots, punctuated by small movements, depicts some of the precinct’s features (sealed or half-dilapidated façades, partially dismantled attractions), retracing a route within the premises. Intended to force the focus of perception, the film explores the links between temporal experience and the visual and aural grasp of a specific place. – João Nisa

Fog Line
1970, 11 min
Larry Gottheim

One stares, one stares, and the fog begins to lift, the exquisite image reveals itself. The three patchy trees, the landscape lines, the tension lines, the moving ghost animals, the moving emulsion, all is impressed on consciousness, is consciousness. Still, rigid lines attempt to contain the amorphous elusive moving fog. The nature of lines competes with the nature of fog, but all is harmony, bathed in sumptuous pallor. – Larry Gottheim

Europa 2005, 27 Octobre
2006, 11 min
Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

To celebrate the centenary of Roberto Rossellini’s birth, RAI 3 and Italian producer Enrico Ghezzi commissioned a few filmmakers, among them Jean-Marie Straub e Danièle Huillet, to imagine ‘a moment of the life or of the death’ of Ingrid Bergman’s character in Europa ’51, after the final shot of the film. The directors’ reading is based on a fait divers: on October 27th 2005, in the suburb Clichy-sous-Bois, three youngsters chased by the police hid in a high-voltage electric transformer. Two of them, Bouna Traore and Zyed Benna, were electrocuted and died. This cinétract consists of two times five pans shot near the electric transformer by their friend and fellow filmmaker Jean-Claude Rousseau, who also edited the film.

Debate with Jean-Claude Rousseau and João Nisa
Session #6, afternoon
One Way Boogie Woogie / 27 Years Later
2005, 121 min
James Benning

In 1977 I shot One Way Boogie Woogie in Milwaukee’s industrial valley. Then 27 years later I decided to make the same film again. I located all 60 prior camera positions and most of my old friends and family. Things had changed with age. A few people had died, some of the buildings were gone. I shot in June with grey skies using a fine grain negative stock, Kodak 7245. I used the same soundtrack from the old film, cutting the new images to it. The resulting film, One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later is now the two films shown together – first the old, then the new. It is a film about memory and ageing. – James Benning

Debate with James Benning
Session #7, night
Casting a Glance
2007, 80 min
James Benning

Um filme dedicado a um trabalho artístico que James Benning filmou repetidamente ao longo da sua carreira e que acredita ser um dos mais importantes do século XX: a ‘Spiral Jetty’, um trabalho imenso de land art de Robert Smithson, feito em 1970, no Grande Lago Salgado, no estado de Utah. “Para se ter a experiência da Jetty há que ir muitas vezes. É um barómetro para os ciclos diários e anuais. De manhã à noite, a sua aparência alusiva e em mudança (radical ou subtil) pode ser o resultado de um dado sistema atmosférico ou apenas uma mudança de ângulo do sol. A água pode parecer azul, vermelha, violeta, verde, castanha, prateada ou dourada. O som pode vir de um caça da marinha, de gansos que passam, de tempestades convergentes, de grilos, ou de um silêncio tão calmo que se consegue ouvir o sangue a passar pelas veias dos ouvidos.” – James Benning

Spiral Jetty
1970, 32 min
Robert Smithson

This film, made by Robert Smithson with the assistance of Virgina Dwan, is a poetic and process minded film depicting a ‘portrait’ of his renowned earth work – the ‘Spiral Jetty’, as it juts into the shallows off the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. A voice-over by Smithson reveals the evolution of the ‘Spiral Jetty’. Sequences filmed in a natural history museum are integrated into the film featuring prehistoric relics that illustrate themes central to Smithson’s work. The film also includes a section filmed by Nancy Holt, according to an idea Robert Smithson had about shooting ‘earth’s history’.

20 June, Friday
Session #8, morning
Isole di Fuoco
1954-1955, 11 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Retrato de Inverno de uma Paisagem Ardida
2008, 40 min
Inês Sapeta Dias

To fix the present moment: a landscape destroyed by fire. To search for what is left (the colours, the textures, the silences) in the rubble. A willingness to stare at the dead body of the burned tree and realize its place in the earth where it remains. An observation of the passing of time over the burned tree and a perception of its immobility. – Inês Sapeta Dias

Pasolini Pa* Palestine
2005, 51 min
Ayreen Anastas

The film is both a return to the past of a country and a return to the traces of a film: Pasolini’s documentary Sopralluoghi in Palestina per il Vangelo Secondo Matteo. About forty years later, Ayreen Anastas, a young film director of Palestinian origin, attempts to repeat Pasolini’s trip to Palestine in 1963. Step by step and shot by shot, she turns Pasolini’s script into a roadmap superimposed on Palestine’s current landscape, creating contradictions between the visual and the audible, the expected and the real. On one hand it is the same film – the same pace, the same respect and the same land – but on the other hand it is another, completely different film.

Sopralluoghi in Palestina Per Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo
1965, 55 min
Pier Paolo Pasolini

Searching for location sites for the shooting of his film The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Pier Paolo Pasolini explores the Holy Land and describes its beauty and contradictions through a dialogue with a priest, Don Andrea Carraro. Pasolini confides to him his disappointment of not finding in that barren, hot land the décor he had wished for, that would match the grand events that ocurred two thousand years before. Pasolini later shot his Vangelo in the South of Italy.

Debate with Inês Sapeta Dias
Session #9, afternoon
Nuit et Brouillard - Un Film Dans L'histoire (lecture)
(palestra)
Sylvie Lindeperg

The film Night and Fog by Alain Resnais is the ‘palimpsest’ analysed by historian Sylvie Lindeperg, as a ‘place of portable memory’ of the Nazi camps, progressively made up from the transformations of the context in which it is read. With exemplary meticulousness, Sylvie Lindeperg recounts the ‘migrations’ in time and space of the images used or created by Resnais, so as to make a ‘history of the gazes’ concerning the film and the multiple re-appropriations it has been subject to. In a session of live ‘micro- history’, we are shown the process of film making, through cinema’s own gestures and tools: Lindeperg examines framing choices, the production of meaning through editing, the condition of the filmed image and the status of archive footage; she questions the borders between documentary and fiction, between still image and moving image; she makes up/breaks down relations between image, sound and word. WEven a quiet landscape… can lead us into a concentration camp.” Those are the first words we hear in Night and Fog.

Collective debate
Session #10, night
Bab Sebta
2008, 110 min
Frederico Lobo
Pedro Pinho

Bab Sebta’, meaning ‘Ceuta’s door’ in Arabic, is the name of the passage on the border between Morocco and Ceuta. It is the final barrier migrants converge at: they come from all over the African continent and cross the Sahara desert to get to Europe. The film Bab Sebta goes through four cities to meet the waiting rituals and the voices of those travellers.

Debate with Frederico Lobo, Pedro Pinho and Luisa Homem
21 June, Saturday
Session #11, morning
I Dimenticati
1959, 20 min
Vittorio De Seta

The 1950s, Italy saw the production of hundreds of documentaries every year. In this context, De Seta’s early short films stand out as innovative and eccentric in their poetic and technical characteristics: their combination of the ‘realism’ of the subject matter and of the sound, and the ‘unrealism’ of colour and cinemascope, was perceived as conflicting and was very unusual compared with traditional Italian documentaries. “The catching of swordfish in the Strait of Messina, the tuna processing station, the sulphur mine, the sacred representation at Easter, the fishing boats in the Sicilian Channel, the Barbagia shepherds, the peasants harvesting and threshing grain, the ‘forgotten people’ of a little village in Calabria, are taken away from historical immediacy, from social phenomenology, from political dialectics, and restored to the long, unforgettable time in which those gestures, those rites and that culture were formed and took on a precise identity.” – Vincenzo Consolo

Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto
2008, 150 min
Miguel Gomes

In the heart of Portugal, amid the mountains, the month of August is abuzz with people and activity. Emigrants return to their homeland, set off fireworks, fight fires, sing karaoke, hurl themselves from bridges, hunt wild boar, drink beer, make babies. If the director and film crew had gone straight to the point resisting the temptation to join in the festivities, the synopsis would come down to: ‘Our Beloved Month of August follows the affective relationship between a father, his daughter, and her cousin, all musicians in a dance band.’ Thus, love and music. – Miguel Gomes

Debate with Miguel Gomes, Vasco Pimentel and Luís Urbano
Session #12, afternoon
Retour en Normandie
2006, 113 min
Nicolas Philibert

This film’s origins lie in another. The one that the director René Allio shot in Normandy in 1975 based on a local crime: I, Pierre Rivière, having Slaughtered my mother, my Sister and my brother… I was 24 at the time. René Allio had offered me a position as first assistant director. Shot only few miles from the place where the triple murder had ocurred 140 years earlier, this film owed most of its uniqueness to the fact that almost all characters were played by local country people. Today, I have decided to return to Normandy to seek out the transient actors of the film. Thirty years have passed… – Nicolas Philibert

Debate with Nicolas Philibert and Miguel Gomes
Session #13, afternoon
Moi, Pierre Rivière, Ayant Égorgé Ma Mère, Ma Soeur et Mon Frère...
1976, 125 min
René Allio

On June 3rd 1835, in Normandy, Pierre Rivière, a young peasant aged twenty, slaughters his mother, his sister Victoire and his little brother Jules with a billhook. He escapes and wanders for several weeks in the woods before being arrested. Shortly after imprisonment, the murderer – described by most of the witnesses as a boy with strange behaviour, something close of an idiot – begins the writing of a thick memoir, a true autobiography of astonishing beauty in which he describes the motives that led to his action: to free his father from the ‘sorrows and afflictions’ his wife submitted him to, from the very first day of their marriage. Shot with non-professional actors in the main roles – recruited among the peasants of the regions – Allio’s film is a singular work that captures the opacity of this enigma.

22 June, Sunday
Session #14, morning
O Cinema, Cem Anos de Juventude
Os Filhos de Lumière

Session presented by the Association Os Filhos de Lumière, including the screening of films made by students from Escola Secundária de Serpa; with Teresa Garcia and Pierre-Marie Goulet.

Partie de Campagne
1936/1946, 40 min
Jean Renoir

Based on a short story by Maupassant, the story of a bourgeois family – Monsieur Dufour, his wife Juliette and their daughter Henriette – that leaves Paris and sets out for a Summer day in the country. On the banks of the Marne, Monsieur Dufour and his young daughter’s fiancé go fishing, whilst the two women flirt with two boatmen. Fourteen years later, the same family vacations at the same spot and they meet up again, but everything has changed. A synthesis of all that is fundamental in Renoir’s work and a film where cinema takes to a limit its potential to represent nature as a celebration of life.

Debate with João Mário Grilo
moderated by José Manuel Costa
Debate with Jean Breschand and Keja Ho Kramer
moderado by Cyril Neyrat and José Manuel Costa
Debate with Jean-Claude Rousseau
moderated by Cyril Neyrat and Nuno Lisboa
Debate with Jean-Claude Rousseau and João Nisa
moderated by Ricardo Matos Cabo
Debate with James Benning
moderated by Cyril Neyrat, José Manuel Costa and Ricardo Matos Cabo
Debate with Inês Sapeta Dias
moderated by José Manuel Costa and Nuno Lisboa
Collective debate
Debate with Frederico Lobo, Pedro Pinho and Luisa Homem
moderated by José Manuel Costa
Debate with Miguel Gomes, Vasco Pimentel and Luís Urbano
moderated by José Manuel Costa
Debate with Nicolas Philibert and Miguel Gomes
moderated by José Manuel Costa
Participants
Adriana Bolito, Alexander Gerner, Alexandre Pereira Meire, Ana José da Palma Serra, Ana Margarida Gil, Ana Raquel Sapeta Martinho, André Dias, Ansgar Schafer, António S. Viana, Aurélia Babi, Aya Koretzky, Beatriz Naranjo, Bruno Cabral, Bruno Lourenço, Carlos Barros, Carlos Coelho, Carlos Eduardo Viana, Carlos Manuel Rocha Morais, Catarina Alves Costa, Catarina Mourão, Catarina Saraiva, Catarina Simão, Claudia Berg, Cláudia Alves, Cláudia Maia, Daniel Blaufuks, Daniel Serra Pereira, Dina Ferreira, Gonçalo Tocha, Elias Luque, Ezequiel Silva, Fernando Carrilho, Fernando de Almeida, Fernando Vieiras, sHiroatsu Suzuki, Isidro Sangue, Joana Ascensão, Joana Pimenta, Joana Teixeira Pinto, João dos Santos, João Nuno Matos de Almeida, Jorge Campos, José Albuquerque Tavares, José Carlos Pires Dias, José Miguel Lameiras, Kristina Konrad, Leonor Areal, Leonor Noivo, Lisa Persson, Luciana Fina, Luis Brandão, Luis Correia, Luís Urbano, Luisa Homem, Manuel Mozos, Márcia Santos, Maria Antónia Fiadeiro, Maria Cecília Sapeta, Maria Daniela Rodrigues, Maria do Carmo Piçarra, Maria Helena Sapeta, Maria Inês Martins, Maria João Madeira, Mariana Liz, Mario Durrieu, Marisa Marques Fernandes, Marta Lança, Mathilde Gago, Miguel Clara Vasconcelos, Miguel Coelho, Monique Lignon, Mónica Gomes, Nikolai Grigorievitch Nekh, Nuno Morão, Patricia Pimentel, Paula Sapeta, Paulo Cabral, Pedro Marques, Pedro Rufino, Reinilde Jonlehout, Renata Sancho, Rita Graça Catarino, Rodrigo Silva Candeias, Rodrigo Peixoto, Rossana Torres, Rui Ascensão, Rui Ramos, Sebastião Braga, Sérgio Miguel Rosa Domingos, Sofia Sapeta Dias, Sónia Armengol, Susana de Sousa Dias, Susana Nascimento Duarte, Susana Nobre, Susana Santos Carnapete, Teresa Borges, Tiago Hespanha, Tiago Oliveira, Vasco Pimentel, Vitor Hugo Costa, Walter Tiepelmann
Direction
José Manuel Costa
Programming
José Manuel Costa, Nuno Lisboa and Ricardo Matos Cabo
Production
Maria João Soares and Rita Forjaz
Press Advice
Marisa Cardoso
Poster Photo
António Cunha
Graphic Design
Oficina Grotesca and Manuel Costa
Graphic
Ciência Gráfica
Technical Advice (video)
António Medeiros
Copy Checking (film)
L. Gigante
Simultaneous Translation
Kevin Rose and Márcia de Brito
Electronic Translation
Mariana Wallenstein
Film Projection
Nuno Canhita and Paulo Nogueira (35mm), António Soares/Vídeovisão (16mm)
Video Projection
Open Space Studio
Photographer
Marisa Cardoso
Production Support
Ana Cristina Almeida, Daniel Barros, Maria Remédio, Marina Guiomar, Marta Grachat, Marta Guerreiro, Sílvia das Fadas and Vítor Queiroz
Collaborators
Ana Maria Camões, Cátia Guerreiro, Daniela Passinhas, Henrique Galado, Rita Afonso, Rita Piroleira and Telma Brás (Students from Escola Secundária de Serpa)
Driver
Diogo Cordeiro
Supporting Texts
Joana Frazão (Coordination and Selecting) João Nisa, José Manuel Costa, Nuno Lisboa, Ricardo Matos Cabo (Selecting), Alberto Seixas Santos, Cristina Fernandes, Cyril Béghin, Frederico Ágoas, Inês Sapeta, João Nisa, Keja Ho Kramer, Nathalie Bourgeois, Pierre-Marie Goulet, Teresa Castro, Teresa Garcia (Original texts) e Luís Miguel Correia (Graphics)
Conference
Sylvie Lindeperg
Debate Moderators
Cyril Neyrat, José Manuel Costa, Nuno Lisboa, Pierre-Marie Goulet, Ricardo Matos Cabo and Teresa Garcia
Organization
Apordoc and Câmara Municipal de Serpa
Frederico Lobo

Born in Porto in 1981. He studied Sound and Image at the Catholic University of Porto.
In 2006 he attended the Varan Ateliers documentary course at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, where he made the film Entre-Tempos.

Filmes apresentados
Bab Sebta, 2008, 110 min
Inês Sapeta Dias

She was born in Lisbon, 1980. She has a degree in Communication Sciences from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, FCSH, and completed her degree in Cinema and Culture.
She began working in film programming in 2004, at the Filmoteca de Catalunya, Barcelona, and since 2005 she has been a programmer at the Lisbon Municipal Video Library, having been responsible for projects such as the 6th Short Film Festival, the 1st and 2nd editions of PANORAMA (Portuguese Documentary Film Festival), Ler Cinema, Encontros no Écran, Ver fazer.
“Winter Portrait of a Burnt Landscape” is her first film.

Filmes apresentados
Retrato de Inverno de uma Paisagem Ardida, 2008, 40 min
James Benning
His early films fused "structuralist" investigations into sound-image relationships by filmmakers such as Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton, with an interest in narrative and a deep sensitivity to colour, light and landscape. He captured the attention of the avant-garde cinema world with 8 1/2 x 11 and 11 x 14. Shot in vivid colours in the rural and urban landscapes of his native Midwest, these two films would establish the core of his future formal investigations. His films' rigorous structures - usually based on numerical systems - and exquisitely composed shots reflect his training as a mathematician, and the often autobiographical themes uncover his working-class roots (a rare subject for avant-garde films) and his long-standing commitment to political activism. While his early films were mainly concerned with form and narrative, from the 1980s onwards his work began to feature personal themes and documentary elements, and to increasingly involve themes of history, memory and death. American Dreams, Landscape Suicide and Used Innocence provide glimpses into the minds of violent criminals through their own words, and are made all the more terrifying by Benning's decision to place the crimes in their historical and political contexts rather than passing judgement on them. Depois de se mudar para a Califórnia, na década de 90, Benning iniciou, com o aclamado Deseret, uma série de documentários experimentais investigando os efeitos da história e da política no oeste americano. Compostos quase inteiramente por paisagens, estes filmes relembram as suas primeiras experiências formais com o tempo e com o fora de campo, e são considerados por muitos como sendo os seus melhores. A principal inovação da sua obra - o uso da narrativa para explorar as possibilidades formais do cinema - provou ter uma enorme influência sobre uma série de cineastas experimentais e independentes. Ecos do seu estilo e estética de composição surgiram em publicidades desde os anos 70, e são reconhecíveis no trabalho de realizadores como Jim Jarmusch, Chantal Akerman e Rob Tregenza.
Filmes apresentados
One Way Boogie Woogie / 27 Years Later, 2005, 121 min
Casting a Glance, 2007, 80 min
Jean Breschand

Jean Breschand made several short films and documentaries before writing his first fiction feature, La Papesse Jeanne, released in 2017.

Filmes apresentados
L'aménagement du Territoire, 2006, 45 min
Jean-Claude Rousseau

French filmmaker born in Paris, 1950. Influenced by Jan Vermeer, Yasujiro Ozu and Robert Bresson. Initially supported by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, his first films were made in Super 8. Contrary to what was usual with this technique, Rousseau’s shots are long and fixed. He kept this form in his filmography, even though he later embraced digital video. His short films predominantly deal with nothing less than cinema itself: space, time and movement.

Filmes apresentados
La Vallée Close, 1995, 140 min
Une Vue Sur L'autre Rive, 2005, 24 min
Venise N'existe Pas, 1984, 11 min
Trois Fois Rien, 2006, 78 min
João Mário Grilo

Born in Figueira da Foz in 1958, he has a degree in Sociology and a PhD in Communication Sciences. He is a Full Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He has published articles on criticism, history and theory of cinema and the image. He was the author of the chronicle Imagens in Visão magazine. His first feature film, A Estrangeira (1983), was awarded the Georges Sadoul Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Filmes apresentados
O Tapete Voador, 2008, 56 min
João Nisa

João Nisa was born in Lisbon in 1971. He studied film at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema and a BA and MA in Communication Sciences at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. João has dedicated himself to researching the relationship between cinema and contemporary art, and has written essays for various national and international publications. For several years he taught subjects related to the history of cinema and video and experimental cinema at the School of Arts and Design (Caldas da Rainha). In 2006 he set up João Nisa Produções to develop his projects. He directed the film Nocturno (2007), which was shown at various festivals and programmes, such as Cinéma du réel (‘Exploring Documentary’ section) or DocLisboa (‘Riscos e Ensaios’). He is currently making a film based on the novel L’Image by Jean de Berg (Catherine Robbe-Grillet).

Filmes apresentados
Nocturno, 2007, 27 min
Keja Ho Kramer

Keja Ho Kramer (1974, San Francisco) studied fine arts and is the author of several video works and exhibitions.

Filmes apresentados
The Sky Is My Ceiling, 2006, 11 min
Miguel Gomes

Miguel Gomes was born in Lisbon in 1972. He studied at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema and worked as a film critic between 1996 and 2000. He made several short films and made his feature film debut with A CARA QUE MERECES (2004). AQUELE QUERIDO MÊS DE AGOSTO (2008) and TABU (2012) confirmed his success and international projection. In 2024 he won the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival for GRAND TOUR.

Filmes apresentados
Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto, 2008, 150 min
Nicolas Philibert

Born in 1951 and having worked as an assistant director alongside directors such as Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta, he made his debut behind the camera in 1978 “LA VOIX DE SON MAÎTRE”, co-directed with Gérard Mordillat, a documentary in which he interviewed the bosses of the main French industrial groups. After signing a series of works on mountaineering for television, he dedicated the rest of his work to cinema, authoring an oeuvre characterized by the noblest observational tradition of direct cinema and its reinvention with a highly personalized and inventive gaze. Over the last few decades he has portrayed the most varied institutions like few others, from the Louvre museum to a psychiatric hospital, a zoo or a provincial school, the setting for one of his most popular and cherished films: “ÊTRE ET AVOIR”.

Filmes apresentados
Retour en Normandie, 2006, 113 min
Pedro Pinho

Pedro Pinho was born in May 1977. He studied cinema at ESTC in Lisbon and at ENSLL in Paris between 1999 and 2003. He attended film directing and screenwriting courses at the London Film School and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2005 and 2006. He made two short films in an academic context, Perto (2004) and No Início (2005). In 2008, she completed Bab Sebta – a documentary co-directed with Frederico Lobo about the waiting times of migrants in the border towns of southern Europe – which was awarded prizes at FID Marseille 2008, Doc Lisboa 2008 and Forumdoc BH 2009. In 2009, he founded the production company Terratreme with Leonor Noivo, Luisa Homem, Tiago Hespanha, João Matos and Susana Nobre, where he has collaborated as producer, screenwriter and director of photography on films such as Linha Vermelha by José Filipe Costa, Lacrau by João Vladimiro and A Fábrica De Nada by Jorge Silva Melo. Since 2010, he has been working on the film As Cidades e as Trocas, co-directed with Luisa Homem, about the economic flows and landscape transformations caused by the tourism industry. In 2013, his first medium-length fiction film, An End of the World, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and has since been shown at various international festivals, with its premiere scheduled for October 2013.

Filmes apresentados
Bab Sebta, 2008, 110 min
Sylvie Lindeperg
Filmes apresentados
Nuit et Brouillard - Un Film Dans L'histoire (lecture), (palestra)