The short film has been the territory for discovering and confirming the promises of Portuguese cinema and the most important Portuguese directors. This year is no exception.
In Donkey’s Head, the materiality of memory stands out among different supports and in this multiplicity, which is as sensible as analytical, intimacy and interior ghosts gain a body. In addition, secret spectrums and haunted places are the subject of Macabre, an animated short film that recovers the horror gothic genre in an abandoned mansion. Heroísmo deals with the occupation of empty space, a deserted mall, where a young guy lives by himself. Transmission from the Liberated Zones is also made up of memories and archival witnesses animated by a visual feedback and performative device (shown in the Forum Expanded section of Berlin Film Festival). The four films are being shown on April 26th at 18h00 and on April 27th at 21h45, at Cinema São Jorge.
The second session of national short films (on April 26th at 19h00 and on April 28th at 21h30, at Cinema São Jorge] includes The South, where images, videos, words and thoughts about a journey to South America are choreographed in a digital articulation exercise. Viktoria also follows a journey, an interior one, of a Paralympic athlete who starts walking again and who deals with something that she hides from the world and from herself. As for It would piss me off to die so yoooooung…, it travels into the muddy tunnels of a war of toxic smoke and vain death. Batrachian’s Ballad describes the frog mythology of a gypsy community in order to break it into one thousand pieces (winner of the Golden Bear in the last Berlin Film Festival for best short film).
The power of free association is highlighted in A Guest + A Host = A Ghost, where images and editing construct visual and mysterious equations, a path to the subjectivity of the viewer. Also unexpected is the story portrayed in O Desvio de Metternich, when Leopoldina from Hamburg stopped in the Azores during a trip to Brazil, expecting to meet D. Pedro IV (I in Brazil). In Rocks and Minerals also softens in the heat of a seaside resort where two girls meet again in summer place of childhood and from them emanate the memories of other kinds of heats. In The Huntchback, by the directors Gabriel Abrantes and Ben Rivers – working together for the first time – the places also reflect on the duplicity of time and, in a semiotic game of science fiction, different times (future and past) cross over along with different types of cinematographic genres. These short films can be seen in the two screenings of the National Competition Shorts 3 on April 27th at 19h00 and on April 29th 21h30 at Cinema São Jorge.
The last screening of the National Competition (on April 28th at 19h00 and April 30th 21h30 at Cinema São Jorge) opens up with Barehanded, where a group of youngsters show their bubbly masculinity until danger arrives and their strength crumbles in a foam of fear. For Live Tropical Fish brilliant black and white photography joins with the length of fixed shots and the silences and secrets are as mysterious as the movement of exotic fish. Young Lady also deals with the non said and the secrets between the members of an “ideal” couple from the Estado Novo. Campo de Víboras tells a story of mystery and suspicion in Trás-os-Montes. Ascension works on the supreme mystery of life and death.
The Brand New section, composed of a selection of films made by young filmmakers, is divided into two screenings. The first (April 29th at 19h00, Cinema São Jorge) opens with Hora di Bai about the destruction of the neighbourhood of 6 de Maio. Non-Tempo problematizes Marc Augé’s expression. I’d rather not say portrays the relationship of unsaid words between two friends. And Vigilia follows a Timorese seminarian and his integration into the Portuguese language and culture.
The second screening (April 30th at 19h00, Cinema São Jorge) starts with Maxamba, a film about the demolition of the neighbourhood Quinta da Vitória. After this film, My Youth will be shown, where three generations intersect in a house lost in time. Borda d’Água is a film about the traditional art of fishing in the river Tagus. Finally, there is Jean-Claude, made up of photographs of the 1930s which were discovered in street fairs.