Dídio Pestana

The search for La Flor de Irupé, a lost film by Guillermo Zúñiga, a Spanish pioneer of scientific filmmaking who was exiled in Argentina after the Spanish Civil War, triggers a journey into family histories and national archives.

Filipa César, in her films and installations, explores the post-colonial constellations that were spawned by the recent history of Portugal. Since 2011, her research is focused on the film production in Guinea-Bissau, the beginnings of which were closely linked to the struggle for liberation. In February 2014, in Birbam, about three hours north of the capital Bissau, for the period of three weeks she has been documenting, together with the filmmaker Suleimane Biai, the construction of a house that will serve the surrounding villages as a meeting space. Alongside his work as a filmmaker, Suleimane Biai is the régulo in this region and hence has assumed the duties of the head and conciliator of the community.

In this love story, a young couple faces an uncertain future between Africa and Europe. When they reunite in Lisbon, sharing a house with other immigrants, farness and closeness will test their relationship.

Beneath the harvest sun and the cicada song, Mónica Martins Nunes builds a touching portrait of Serra de Serpa, an arid region in the south of Portugal affected by rural exodus. The poems sung by the shepherds and market traders resonate like the last gesture of a human landscape which resists sinking into oblivion.

Loves are found and lost. Families disappear and start. Houses, denouements, solitude, friendship. All that we keep, and all that we leave behind. Shot on Super 8 film between 2010 and 2018 in Portugal, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Guinea-Bissau, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, ANYTHING AND ALL records the author’s memories as the days return to normal and emotions start to weaken, exploring the little ceremonies and other manias we indulge to remember our story.

Sprout. In the vacant lots against the hammering of buildings always under construction, between walls of granite, cement and sheet metal with rust, moss and cats; on the hillside between the train and the river, next to the traffic on the highway, facing the subway, vegetable gardens sprout. In this city, the choreography of ancient gestures of cultivating the land is repeated day after day, without fail. Sowing, digging, harvesting, watering, eating, talking, resting and returning the next day. The longest day of the year brings S. João and nobody goes to bed, but when the sun rises, the discreet gestures of resistance will restart.