Portuguese cinema has long been noted for its formal audacity and inventiveness. Yet it is only recently that filmmakers have begun to interrogate the dark period of Portuguese history that “ended” in 1974, after four decades of dictatorship and the Colonial War. The films highlighted in this series consider these historic events and their ongoing ramifications with intelligence and imagination, often straddling fiction and documentary forms.
In films by Susana de Sousa Dias, Miguel Gomes, Salomé Lamas, and João Pedro Rodrigues, history is investigated and performed: soldiers and former political prisoners provide testimony, others are questioned about the past, and fact and fiction intermingle as memory does its work. Likewise, when records of the past are examined-personal and state-produced photos, propaganda films, historical documents, the remnants of buildings-they provide glimpses into recent history, but may also reveal how the state stages that history. This awareness is underscored by many of the filmmakers' references to cinema and its construction. Fiction seeps into reality and reality into fiction, and both are seen as ways of seizing upon truths about Portugal's changing society.
We are delighted that filmmakers Susana de Sousa Dias and João Pedro Rodrigues will join us at screenings of their films, in conversation with Nuno Lisboa, who is codirector of Doc's Kingdom Seminar and teaches at Escola Superior de Artes e Design, Caldas da Rainha.