The Book of Natural Magic

Tradition says that on 13 June, Saint Anthony’s Day (the national holiday of Lisbon’s patron), lovers must offer small vases of basil with paper carnations and flags with popular poems as a token of their love.

Do you believe in ghosts? An incantation becomes a refrain in this two-channel projection of sequences from an old film, recaptured on a Lomo lens. It’s all in her* hands shaping his form, her* labour questioning his authority.

"I have told them I would pick oranges in California after having seen The Grapes of Wrath at the Cinematheque."

Feature-length experimental film. Accompanied live performances by Grouper in her fall 2026 tour.

The starting point for "Luz, Clarão, Fulgor" was a black and white photo from the Portuguese Alentejo region, which showed the ruins of the anarchist "Commune of Light" founded by António Gonçalves Correia in 1917 - who subsequently founded a second commune, “Comuna Clarão” (Blaze Commune), in 1926 in Albarraque, Sintra. From the remnants of these social utopias "Luz, Clarão, Fulgor" wants create a radical new movement; starting with the term "Fulgor" coined by the Portuguese writer Maria Gabriela Llansol, which describes the emergence of sudden changes of perspective as well as fundamentally new findings. Double projection. A work in metamorphosis.

From the photographs taken by Russell Lee in rural America during the Great Depression, Sílvia das Fadas tries to recover the lives and relationships of the people photographed following the emotions they raise.

"The remake of the girls", 2008, by Silvia das Fadas. Duration 10'40". DVD PAL -- 4:3. No sound / Black and white. Made as part of the workshop "Movimento Fixo" (Fixed Movement) at the Cinema/Image in Movement Department of Ar.Co (Centre for Art and Visual Communication).

A journey across unique places that challenge the world of their time, landmarks of the future built by revolutionary minds that can be described, each in their own way, as architectural utopias. The film is divided in five chapters which represent five works.