The future of Portuguese cinema will be screened in the Brand New Shorts 1 and Brand New Shorts 2 programmes, with four films each, which will be shown at the Cinema São Jorge, on April 29th and 30th – Friday and Saturday – at 19h and 18h. Every year the Brand New section focuses on giving visibility to filmmakers who are currently taking their first steps. Portugal continues to produce new cinematic voices we wish to defend, support and show off.
The first Brand New programme (on the 29th, Friday at 19h) includes the films Hora di Bai by Bruno Leal, Non-Time by Francisco, I’d rather not say by Pedro Augusto Almeida and Vigília by Ana Mariz.
Hora di Bai focuses on a segregated minority awaiting the destruction of their neighbourhood with fear and anticipation. Non-Time proposes a reinterpretation of Marc Augé’s concept, proposing a space which is one of solitude and similarity at the same time. I’d rather not say is composed of routine fragments of those who live in an isolated space which labels and conditions life’s options. Finally, Vigília follows a Timorese seminarian’s integration into Portuguese language and culture.
The second Brand New program (30th, Saturday at 6 p.m.) includes Maxamba by Suzanne Barnard, My Youth by Rita Quelhas, Borda d’Água by John Viegas and Jean-Claude by Jorge Vaz Gomes.
Maxamba is a living archive of the history and memory of the residents of Quinta da Vitoria, a neighbourhood about to be pulled down, which focuses on the daily life of an elderly couple who are descendants of an Indian family that emigrated from Mozambique to Lisbon in the 1970s. In My Youth, in another time, somewhere in the 1960s in Portugal, we find ourselves in the bedroom of a 16-year-old teenager and her one-year old son crawling on the carpeted floor. Borda d’Água focuses on an old couple and how they maintain the art of traditional fishing in the river Tagus. Jean-Claude is a film made from photographs of the 1930s discovered in a street fair, images leading the director to the story of a family set in the 1930s, the years of an uneasy peace before the Second World War.