FILMS BY ANTONIO REIS AND MARGARIDA CORDEIRO AT THE STAR POLYGON
An opponent of Portugal's autocraticEstado Novo regime, António Reis, born in 1925, is first and foremost a poet, painter and sculptor, but also a sociologist. After assisting a number of crucial Portuguese-speaking filmmakers (Rocha, Oliveira) in their approach to the country's rural roots, he met Margarida Cordeiro, a psychiatrist. Together, they lived the lives of the inhabitants of Trás-os-Montes, a region forgotten by the authorities, until their last breath. There, they cultivate a popular, unconventional cinema of expression, full of radicalism and poetry, to rediscover what is elementary, to make people see and hear. To fight with those who stand on this earth, against the programmed disappearance of knowledge, accumulated since the dawn of time. As a voice murmurs in their film manifesto: " How strange it is to see us, in our tiny village, quietly bowing to all the measures taken by the capital...". Throughout their lives, they dug with their films the furrow of a primitive, cosmogonic communism, as they put it. On the subject of their cinema, which has remained too secret, Jean Rouch, an admirer like a few others (Straub, Costa, Monteiro, Daney...) said: "Rarely , to my knowledge, have filmmakers undertaken with such obstinacy the cinematographic expression of a region: I mean this difficult communion between men, landscapes and seasons. Only unreasonable poets could put such disturbing objects into circulation."
We are particularly happy to be able to share these films, which are still not widely distributed in France, at the Polygone Étoilé, thanks to the work of the Cinemateca Portuguesa, which recently restored them. We've put together a brochure featuring writings about their work, the filmmakers' own words, and poems by Antonio Reis, translated for the occasion.
In dialogue with the cinematography of Antonio Reis and Margarida Cordeiro, we are also presenting Cem Raios T'Abram (One Hundred Lightning Bolts Open You), a short collective film made at Pitões das Júnias, Trás-os-Montes, Portugal. This film/experiment was constructed like an exquisite corpse over the course of three years, between 2012 and 2015. It was shot on 16mm film and hand-developed using traditional methods. The film was made collectively by Bruno Borges, Dayana Lucas, Emily King, Filipe Silva, Francisco Queimadela, Frankão, Frederico Lobo, Jean-Baptiste, Maria João, Mariana Caló, Marta Baptista, Miguel Carneiro, Mónica Baptista, Nuno Marques Pinto, Patorro, Pedro Nora and Rita Braga.
Between films, we'll share a Portuguese meal.
17h
- Trás-os-Montes - Portugal - 108 minutes - 16mm - 1976
(Digital copy restored by Cinemateca Portuguesa)
A cinematographic portrait of a Portuguese region "behind the mountains", Trás-os-Montes. A documentary that invents its own tools, sometimes far removed from reality, to better rediscover it. Memory and Imagination, said Reis.This mythical film, which influenced all post-Salazar Portuguese cinema, doesn't hesitate to resort to the marvelous, blending ancestral depth - the facts, words and poetry of those who live there - with the challenges of modernity, to retrace the fertile paths of a forgotten people.
7:30pm - MEAL (free)
21h
- Cem Raios T'Abram - 15 minutes - 16mm - 2015
- Ana - Portugal - 115 minutes - 16mm - 1982
(Digital copy restored by Cinemateca Portuguesa)
A second tribute to the rural territory of Trás-os-Montes, in which Margarida Cordeiro's mother plays her own role, transmitting with others, over the course of the seasons and work, the rites of which she is the custodian. Shifting from documentary to fiction, from dream to anthropology, the film chronicles, in the thickness of time, gestures and landscapes, the living archaeology of a family, such as there were so many at the time.
Screenings co-organized by Polygone Étoilé, Dérives magazine(Jeremy Gravayat), and ANFAA, Chaire d'excellence AMIDEX / IDEAS - Université Aix-Marseille (Daniela Rodrigues), in partnership with Cinemateca Portugesa - Museu do Cinema.
Coordination of the brochure and translation of Antonio Reis' poems: Carole Joscht.
