THIRD UK PORTUGUESE FILM FESTIVAL

25 NOV – 08 DEC 2012

Whitechapel Gallery / Barbican Cinema / Tricycle Theatre / Ciné Lumière

The UK Portuguese Film Festival returns to London in November with fresh and contemporary Portuguese-spoken film productions. The dissemination of Portuguese cinema and its relationship with different art forms, illustrating contemporary tendencies in national film-making and stirring up current debates in Portuguese and Lusophone culture, have been the event’s main focus since 2010. Following a favourable period of many awards won by Portuguese directors in renowned film festivals around the globe such as Berlin, Cannes and Locarno, the 3rd UK Portuguese Film Festival showcases six internationally acclaimed features and welcomes directors and actors to special screen talks. This edition is a rare opportunity to meet renowned cultural figures such as Anglo-Portuguese painter Paula Rego and Spanish journalist Pilar Del Rio, the former literary agent of novelist Nobel prize-winner José Saramago. Other highlights are recent works by young and acclaimed film director and video artist João Salaviza and the Lisbon Architecture Triennale’s presence with films about architecture by Julião Sarmento, João Onofre and Filipa César, presented by the curators of the 2013 edition of the Triennale at the Whitechapel. Portugal’s fascist history is shown through Susana Sousa Dias’ 48, while Edgar Pêra’s The Baron is neo-Gothic satirical literary adaptation. The festival is also offering two return flights to Portugal in partnership with TAP airlines. Winners will be announced by Christmas.

Supported by the Portuguese Embassy in the UK and funded by Instituto Camões, the 3rd edition of the festival is sponsored by TAP and AmplitudeNet and has been developed in collaboration with the Barbican Centre, the Whitechapel Gallery, the Institut Français, the Tricycle Theatre, the Foundation José Saramago and the Lisbon Architecture Triennale.

FESTIVAL SCHEDULING

25/11 Sunday 15:30 Whitechapel Gallery - No Place Like: 4 houses, 4 films + Screen Talk with Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2013’s curatorial team.

29/11 Thursday 19:00 Barbican Centre - Paula Rego: Telling Tales + Screen Talk with Paula Rego and Jake Auerbach.

01/12 Saturday 16:00 Ciné Lumière - 3 films by João Salaviza + Screen Talk with João Salaviza.

04/12 Tuesday 20:30 Tricycle Theatre - 48 + Screen Talk with Susana Sousa Dias.

07/12 Friday 18:30 Ciné Lumière - José and Pilar + Screen Talk with Pilar Del Rio.

08/12 Saturday 20:30 Tricycle Theatre - The Baron (O Barão) + Screen Talk with Edgar Pêra

WHITECHAPEL GALLERY SUN 25 NOV 15h30

No Place Like: 4 houses, 4 films (PG): Casa na Comporta by João Salaviza (2010, 20'), Sem título (SUN 2500) by João Onofre (2010, 22'), Cromlech by Julião Sarmento (2010, 38'), Porto 1975 by Filipa César (2010, 10'). The session will be followed by a screen talk with Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2013’s curatorial team (Beatrice Galilee, Mariana Pestana, Liam Young and Manuel Henriques). Curated by Julia Albani, José Mateus, Rita Palma and Delfim Sardo, this project presents 4 films about architectural works by Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus, Ricardo Bak Gordon, João Luís Carrilho da Graça and Pritzker winner Álvaro Siza Vieira. It represented Portugal in the 12th International Architecture Exhibition (La Biennale di Venezia) held from August to November 2010, under the theme 'people meet in architecture'. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

BARBICAN SAT 29 NOV 19h30

Paula Rego: Telling Tales (PG). Portugal 2012 Dir. Jake Auerbach 47’. The screening will be followed by a screen talk with Paula Rego and director Jake Auerbach. Auerbach’s documentary is an intimate and fascinating portrait of the life of Portuguese visual artist Paula Rego, following her from Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid), where a major retrospective of her work was held in 2009, back to her studio in London. Born in Portugal, Paula Rego went to school in Kent and then the Slade in the 50s. She has been praised for presenting a female point of view and dramatic emotional stories in her drawings and paintings, and became the first associate artist at the National Gallery. (In English)

CINÉ LUMIÈRE SAT 01 DEC 16h00

Arena 15’ / Strokkur 7’ / Rafa 25’ (PG). Portugal 2010 Dir. João Salaviza. The screening will be followed by a screen talk with João Salaviza. At the age of 25, João Salaviza won the Palme D’Or in Cannes with his sublime Arena, a short-film about a youngster under house arrest in a deprived urban neighbourhood. Opening with this intense essay about exclusion, poverty and freedom, the session will then showcase the stunning visual and sonic experiment Strokkur, followed by Rafa, Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival 2012, portraying an adolescent through his journey from deprived household to prison, where his mother is in detention. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

CINÉ LUMIÈRE SAT 07 DEC 18h30

José and Pilar (PG). Portugal 2010 Dir. Miguel Gonçalves Mendes 117’. The screening will be followed by a screen talk with Pilar Del Rio. The result of director Miguel Gonçalves Mendes’ three-year (2006-2009) documentation of Nobel Prize winner José Saramago’s relationship with Pilar del Rio, the internationally acclaimed José and Pilar uncovers the couple’s moving love story, at the same time that it acutely reflects the complex character of one of the most influential novelists of the last and the present centuries. With the support of Foundation José Saramago, Pilar Del Rio will join Guardian’s journalist Maya Jaggi to talk about the film and Saramago's life and work at the end of the session. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

TRICYCLE THEATRE TUE 04 DEC 20h30

48 (PG). Portugal 2011 Dir. Susana Sousa Dias 93’. The screening will be followed by a screen talk with Susana Sousa Dias. Best film at festivals such as Cinemá du Réel, Jihlava, Mar de Plata and Doc Lisboa, 48 is a poignant documentary about torture during the dictatorship in Portugal (1926-1974). The film covers almost half a century of the Estado Novo, based on a group of photographs of former political prisoners, uncovering the mechanisms through which an authoritarian system perpetuated itself. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

TRICYCLE THEATRE SAT 08 DEC 20h30

The Baron (O Barão) (PG). Portugal 2011 Dir. Edgar Pêra 105’. The screening will be followed by a screen talk with Edgar Pêra. In the director’s own words, The Baron is a neo-gothic remake of a ghost film directed during the II World War and forbidden by the dictatorship in Portugal. Hypnotic in an expressionistic way, the plot leads the narrator through the eccentric nature of the castle of the Baron - an emotional chameleon, ‘man-boar’, a pure beast -, who terrifies the inhabitants of a countryside village and lives an imprisoned love. Best film at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Baron is a visceral allegory about power and love, crafted by ‘unaligned’ and experimental director Edgar Pêra who, once more, adapts the work of Portuguese novelist Branquinho da Fonseca for the big screen. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

TICKETS

Whitechapel Gallery (from £3) 77-82 Whitechapel High Street E1 7QX +44 (0)20 7522 7888

Barbican Cinema (from £9.5) Silk Street EC2Y 8DS +44 (0)20 7638 8891

Tricycle Theatre (from £8) 269 Kilburn High Road, Kilburn NW6 7JR +44 (0)20 7328 1000

Ciné Lumière (from £10) 17 Queensberry Place +44 (0)20 7871 3515

For press enquiries, please contact:

Fernanda Franco

M: +44 (0) 7939 941 831

E: press@filmville.org

For more information about the films and festival guests, please visit:

www.filmville.org/ukptff

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THIRD UK PORTUGUESE FILM FESTIVAL