Curtas-Metragens, CRL

Varziela, Vila do Conde, the biggest Chinatown in Portugal. A man wearing a hat and a missing woman. A high-heeled shoe, a blond wig and a Chinese dress. The confrontation between the East Wind and the Red Dragon; the cardinal points switched as in an ultimate Mahjong game.

An instant in the memory of landscape: the smuggling that for centuries crossed the line between Portugal and Galicia. The Gerês Mountains knows no borders, and rocks cross from one country to another with insolence. Smugglers also disobey this separation. The rocks, the river, the trees: silent witnesses that help them to hide. They just have to wait for the night to cross the distance that separates them.

On 18 September 1929, José Régio sent a letter to Alberto Serpa expressing his desire to create a production company and start making films. For almost 90 years, nothing more was known: no reply was ever found and Régio never mentioned the subject again. The discovery of some old reels in a collector’s hoard seems to provide the ending to the story.

A boy from Vila do Conde records a love letter on a cassette. His voice blends with music, archive images and stories from the past, some lived and others heard.

Based on the installation Santa Paz Domestica, Domesticada by Ana Vieira (1977) and excerpts from the September 22nd, 1956 issue of the magazine O Cruzeiro.

Travels around Portuguese roads, with its very peculiar landscapes: a seismograph of passing time.

Gerês, Portugal. Days are born with fire and die with it. Men renew the earth with ancient practices. All beings inhabit the same place.

Just like a young man starting to love, a river has to find its way through the mountains.