Utopia – 8th UK Portuguese Film Festival 2017

Cinema Adaptation and Found in Translation

LONDON, UK

Utopia 8th UK Portuguese Film Festival is delighted to announce its 2017 programme around the topic of Cinema: Adaptation and Found in Translation. The Festival will focus on Film & Literature showing films at King’s College, Birkbeck , Ciné Lumière, Picture House and the Embassy of Brazil, from 13 November to 1 December 2017. In addition, the festival is also co-organising the conference From Text to Screen and Back to Text Film and Literature: The Portuguese Context, to be held at King’s College on 13 and 14 November. This colloquium will address the theme of literary adaptation to the screen (always a great academic catalyst) and will complement the film programme. Aiming to reach a wider and more diverse audience across the UK, the festival has partnered with FACT in Liverpool for a noteworthy screening of João Botelho’s adaptation of Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet to the big screen.

8th 13 1 Dec 2017

This year the festival has proudly teamed up with the Essay Film Festival and will jointly bring a special screening of Rita Azevedo Gomes’s CORRESPONDENCES, followed by a live poetry reading and a conversation with the film director chaired by Sight & Sound film critic Kieron Corless. The film addresses the correspondence between poets Jorge de Sena and Sophia de Mello Breyner during de Sena’s 20-year-long exile. As part of the its educational scope the festival will present an exclusive matinée session of João Nicolau’s John From for KS3 school students. The screen adaptation of the Brazilian classic Diary of Helena Morley, directed by Helena Soldberg - the only woman to be recognised as part of the Cinema Novo movement - will be showing at the Embassy of Brazil in London. The festival is supported by Instituto Camões and the Portuguese Embassy in the UK. Note that all films are in Portuguese and will be screened with English subtitles.

KING’S COLLEGE MON 13 NOV 6.30PM. DISQUIET + Q&A with João Botelho. Portugal, 2010 / Drama / 90’. Directed by one the greatest Portuguese film directors, João Botelho, Desassossego is based on The Book of Disquiet written by one of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms: Bernardo Soares. The Book of Disquiet is widely considered as one the great literary works of the 20th century. The film was a success with audiences and film columnists in Portugal and was distributed suigeneris, outside the mainstream channels. It was screened in cultural centres and alternative venues across Portugal. In partnership with King’s College. Free entry.

KING’S COLLEGE TUE 14 NOV 6.30 PM. ZEUS + Q&A with Paulo Filipe Monteiro. Portugal/Algeria, 2017 / Drama / 117’. Zeus tells the unique story of Manuel Teixeira Gomes, the 7th elected President of Portugal, who held office between 1923 and 1925, the tumultuous times forerunning the rise of the fascist Estado Novo in 1926. The film focuses on Teixeira Gomes’s talents as a sensual and uninhibited writer, exploring his erotic themes and also his openness to the mediterranean cultures. A progressive politician, Gomes became dispirited with the rise of authoritarianism in Portugal and left the country aboard the freighter Zeus that gives the film its name. The narrative centres around Gomes’s idiosyncratic character, without ever renouncing the historical context giving rise to his departure. This uncommon mixture of the broad and the personal is enhanced by Dead Combo and Bernardo Sasseti’s excellent soundtrack. Free entry.

BIRKBECK COLLEGE SAT 18 NOV 11 AM - 5 PM. CORRESPONDENCES + Poetry reading by Margaret Jull Costa and Pedro Mexia (11AM - 12.30) + Q&A with Rita Azevedo Gomes and Kieron Corless (13.30 - 5PM). Portugal, 2016 / Documentary / 145’. During his forced 20-year-long exile (he never returned to Portugal), Jorge de Sena kept an epistolary correspondence with Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. These letters are testimony to the profound friendship between the two poets, letters of longing and desire to “fill years of distance with hours of conversation”. Through excerpts and verses, a dialog is established, revealing their divergent opinions but mostly their strong bond, and their efforts to preserve it until their last breaths.This special event features a complimentary reading of Jorge de Sena and Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen’s poetry by Margaret Jull Costa and Pedro Mexia. And the director, Rita Azevedo Gomes, will also be in conversation with Kieron Corless. In partnership with the Essay Film Festival, with the support of Instituto Camões and the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS). Free entry. registration needed: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/essay-film-festival-presents-correspondencias-2016-tickets-37245474216.

CINÉ LUMIÈRE TUE 28 NOV 4 - 5.45 PM. JOHN FROM. Portugal, 2015 / Drama / 100’. João Nicolau’s second feature gracefully portrays the dreamy and tender universe of teenage first love. Set in Telheiras, the director and his co-writing sister’s childhood neighbourhood, this is a homage to long summer days and teenage imagination, and a love letter to one of Lisbon’s uptown residential districts. John From once again brings us the director’s unique sense of humour, in a tropical fairytale journey from suburban Lisbon into the oceans of the South and then back again to a transformed “Exotic Republic of Telheiras”. For schools. by invitation only.

CINÉ LUMIÈRE TUE 28 NOV 6.30PM. SKIN. Portugal 2006, Drama / 102’. A gripping melodrama, infused with Almodovarian female sensitivity and Pop-art visual invention, along with shades of Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life. Set in Lisbon in the 1970s, it tells the story of Olga, the beautiful and intelligent love child of a wealthy entrepreneur, who realises that, despite her ostensible status, she will never be fully accepted by either peers or society, being the daughter of her father’s mistress and also mixed race. While essentially serious in tone, savagely depicting the dysfunctional state of post-Salazar Portugal, this film also presents a veritable feast of period kitsch and visually opulence. Based on an original idea by Henrique Galvão (1895-1970). Tickets £12 / £10 conc.

CINÉ LUMIÈRE WED 29 NOV 8.40 PM. MUDDY RIVER. Portugal, 2007 / Drama / 90’. The bizarre and tragic ballad of an impossible love between a nameless topographer and Leonor, the swamp-flower. A love soon to be destroyed by the forces of Man. Teresa Salgueiro, the ethereal voice of Madredeus, is the flower, the protégée of a Socratic director (and his goat Plato). In a world devoid of other women, she is kept safe from any temptations of the flesh by her strict and grotesque Aunt. A sound-track entirely played by the workers (Fado and Bossa Nova singers) reveals parallel narratives of suspicion and conspiracy that unfold to the pace of unconscious forces, leading to a confrontation between Man and River. Inspired by a hypnotic story by Branquinho da Fonseca (1905-1974). Tickets £12 / £10 conc.

FACT LIVERPOOL THU 30 NOV 6.30PM. DISQUIET. Portugal, 2010 / Drama / 90’. Directed by one the greatest Portuguese film directors, João Botelho, Desassossego is based on The Book of Disquiet written by one of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms: Bernardo Soares. The Book of Disquiet is widely considered as one the great literary works of the 20th century. The film was a success with audiences and film columnists in Portugal and was distributed suigeneris, outside the mainstream channels. It was screened in cultural centres and alternative venues across Portugal. Free entry.

EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN THE UK FRI 1 DEC 6.30PM. DIARY OF A PROVINCIAL GIRL. Brazil, 2004 / Drama / 101’. Helena Soldberg’s Vida de Menina is a reenactment of Helena Morley’s life between 1893 and 1895, the period the writer dedicated to penning her teenage secret diary, and a turbulent time in Brazil that followed the abolition of slavery (1888) and the proclamation of its First Republic (1889). The film recreates the author’s life and her country’s story during this brief spell, based upon the incisive and intelligent observations she left in her extraordinary diary. Morley, the daughter of an Englishman, lived with her family in the remote town of Diamantina, a colonial village once known for its gold and diamond mining. Helena Morley is the pseudonym under which Alice Dayrell wrote her diary and the only book she ever published. It has acquired such growing importance as to be considered one of the great works of Brazilian literature. Free entry. Registration needed: culturalbrazil.rsvp@gmail.com.

NOTES TO EDITOR

Camões Centre for Studies in Portuguese Language and Culture

The Camões Centre for Studies in Portuguese Language and Culture was created in 2010 by agreement between Instituto Camões (Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Portugal) and King’s College London. The Camões Centre provides the teaching staff and the students at KCL, and other interested parties, a nucleus for the deepening of knowledge in the fields of Portuguese language, culture, history and politics, and for the participation in academic and cultural activities within these fields. It also works as a focal point for Portuguese-related activities across a range of academic disciplines at university level in the UK.

Utopia – UK Portuguese Film Festival

Launched in 2010, the annual Utopia - UK Portuguese Film Festival is programmed by Filmville to promote in the UK films from Portuguese speaking countries. The festival has partnered with institutions such as the Barbican Arts Centre, the ICA, the Whitechapel Gallery, the Institut français, the Tricycle Theatre and The Picture House.

Filmville

Was founded in 2007 with the aim of curating and promoting Portuguese spoken cinema in the UK. Since 2010, Filmville has programmed the annual Utopia UK Portuguese Film Festival, working with institutions such as the Barbican Arts Centre, the ICA, the Whitechapel Gallery, the Institut français, the Tricycle Theatre and The Picture House. Filmville is run by Érica Faleiro Rodrigues, with external help from freelancers and key institutions.

TICKETS

King’s College London: free entrance

Ciné Lumière: standard £12 / members £10 / concession £10

Embassy of Brazil in the UK: free entrance

Birkbeck: free entrance

FACT Liverpool: standard £12.20 / members £10.20 / concession £10.20

King’s College London Strand, WC2R 2LS T: Charing Cross, Temple and Embankment Link: www.kcl.ac.uk

Ciné Lumière 17 Queensberry Place, SW7 2DT T: South Kensington Link: www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere

Embassy of Brazil in the UK

14-16 Cockspur Street SW1Y 5BL T: Charing Cross, Piccadilly Circus and Embankment Link: londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/

Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square, WC1H OPD T: Russell Square, King’s Cross and Euston Link: www.bbk.ac.uk

FACT Liverpool 88 Wood Street, Liverpool – L1 4DQ T: Liverpool Central and Liverpool Lime Street Link: www.fact.co.uk

For further information, please contact Fernanda Franco +44 (0) 7939 941 831 / press@filmville.org

Further information: www.utopiafestival.org.uk

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