Lament to Waters

Atlantic Poems - La Force(en)

Dancing not to be dead(es)

Some spaces draw attention, as if they evoke something that’s about to happen. These are the places where we escape when we dream or die. The only thing that exists is time; we wait for the moment to arrive.

Basin of Souls(pt)

Rua de Santa Catarina, a street that was formerly home to dozens of local businesses and hundreds of Porto residents, now sees a crowd of tourists attracted by the cheap, disposable amenities that are popping up everywhere at once. Gentrification has decontextualized Portuguese culture, rendering the landscape uncanny. The Basin Woman, a symbol of the female workers of the historic Bolhão Market, is chased down by seagulls in the midst of this transcendent chaos.

Echo(en)

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?

Pacho's visual archive(es)

After the death of my only brother I found rolls of undeveloped film. This documentary is a reenactment of those stills and an exploration of the aspects of my brother's life that I didn't know.

Lugar de Nadie(es)

USSR (1917-1991)(xx)

Experimental short film that explores the rise and decline of the Soviet Union, from the revolutionary spark of 1917 to the challenges and sacrifices endured during World War II, until its dissolution in 1991.

Hit Him on the Head with a Hard Heavy Hammer(en)

Hit Him on the Head with a Hard, Heavy Hammer departs from the handwritten memoir of the filmmaker’s father and his experience of displacement during wartime. Referring to the notion Thomas Hardy termed ‘The Self-Unseeing’ in his eponymous 1901 poem, the film returns to childhood and the matters that harden us: upbringing, social status, education, labour, and familial bonds. The memoir weaves into the film as both a contemplation on mortality and an illustration of fading memory, reflecting on how we pen our pasts and how they can be re-told.

59th second(xx)

This experimental film takes a closer look through the entomologist's lens at the cyclical behavioural patterns linking humans to the insect world. Just as the fig wasp inevitably finds death in the pollination of the fig tree flower, we too are thrown into the dance of passion and death. Drawn by the seductive scent of allurement and the inevitability of the final end.

City with Dreams of the Sea(xx)

Short film of a general landscape about the saturation of the city. 35mm.

Kewaaj(bn)

The word kewaaj (কেওয়াজ) is colloquially used to explain chaos, noisiness or annoyance. "Kewaaj" is an audiovisual attempt to give you a glimpse into how the people of Dhaka function in one of the most unliveable cities, according to the Global Liveability Index.

Witness(xx)

Experimental short film by Barbara Sykes

Cartas de Arapuca(pt)

Variations on How to Farm a City(pt)

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.

Pandemic in Times of Love(es)

A 16mm archive from 1964 intervened as an emotional diary during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic is the basis of this film, reinterpreted in the montage of the sound design, in which the images are reinterpreted, emphasizing the soundscape of the protests from 2020 to 2023 in the streets of Cajamarca, Cusco and Lima, three regions of Peru, questioning the constant political and social crisis.

As Janelas Me Diziam Que Os Carros Cor De Lembrança Ainda Percorriam as Movimentadas Ruas do Esquecimento(pt)

Letter to L.Y(en)

Letter to L.Y is Stephanie Mavi Garcia Panclas' second experimental film for their class. The film surrounds the feeling of nostalgia shown through the layering of video.

From a distant time.(en)

In the summer of 1900, the first film camera was purchased by Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar for Iran, and immediately the first Iranian moving images were captured by this camera. These images, in an obsessive manner, have embodied the mesmerized gaze of people. In the span of 79 years since the purchase of this camera, Iran has undergone two revolutions and two coups, and throughout all these moments, the camera has been present as the recorder of people's mesmerized gazes. These mesmerized gazes are in a way as if they are the ones looking at us, not the other way around. It seems like these gazes are trying to convey something, but what? No one knows. Now, we gaze at those who have gazed at us from a distant time.

Deformed Analog Personality(en)

A humanoid film robot spews its stream of consciousness throughout its allocated screen time.

o céu diante dos meus olhos nunca é cinza(pt)