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9-17 JULY: 'CURTAS VILA DO CONDE' INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Between 9th and 17th July in Vila do Conde, Portugal, the 19th ‘Curtas Vila do Conde Festival Internacional de Cinema’ takes place, focusing on the world of cinema and audiovisuals through a diverse programme of film screenings, show performances, exhibitions and debates.
The festival is structured around a series of national and international competitions for short films, music videos, ‘Curtinhas’ Children’s Films, Experimental Features and the ‘Take One!’ competition for entries from Portuguese students.
The In Focus programme of the festival each year provides a retrospective programme including films, exhibitions and/or master classes which reveal some of Portuguese public cinema’s most remarkable authors like Artavazd Pelechian, Manoel de Oliveira, Gus van Sant, Abbas Kiarostami, Peter Greenaway, Alexander Sokurov, Tsai Ming Liang, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, among others.
For Curtas Vila do Conde 2011 In Focus will make a retrospective on the Romanian author and filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu, screening all his works: three short films and two features. The director will attend the Festival and will also present a masterclass. The Portuguese première of ‘POLITIST ADJECTIV’ by Corneliu Porumboiu takes place at 9.30 on the opening night 9th July 2011.
The actor Pierre Clémenti was one of the most wanted for the European underground cinema of the 60s and 70s and also worked with directors such as Buñuel, Bertolucci, Visconti and Pasolini. He worked in one of the least-known films of Fado singer Amália Rodrigues: “The Enchanted Islands,” from the Spanish Carlos Villardebó in 1965. In recent years, it was discovered a set of experimental films that the actor directed in 60s and 70s and Curtas Vila do Conde will show some of these unreleased films in two film-concerts – one with the Portuguese Gala Drop, and the other with American musician Arto Lindsay performing with the Jun Miyake.
Another key part of the festival is the STEREO exhibition, running until 18th September in Solar Cinematic Art Gallery and the Centro de Memória de Vila do Conde ,which mixes six pairs of Portuguese creators joined in partnerships to create unqiue audiovisual installations : The Legendary Tiger Man + Rodrigo Areias; Manuel João Vieira + Bruno de Almeida; Black Bombaim + Sandro Aguilar; Adolfo Luxúria Canibal + João Onofre; Pedro Gomes + Gabriel Abrantes; Norberto Lobo + João Salaviza.
On the opening night of Curtas 2011 at 11.30pm there will also be a world première of Rodrigo Areias‘ new “Portuguese Western” feature film ‘ESTRADA DE PALHA’ (Straw Road), with music by Legendary Tigerman and Rita Red Shoes. Areias’ film tells the story of a man who after having lived away from his country for more than a decade, returns to his village to avenge the death of his brother. The world of “Estrada de Palha” is transformed by the musicians who worked “weird and wonderful instruments, such as the Marxophone, Celestaphone, Violuke, Violin-Harp and the Guitar-lele”. A unique combination of the best in both Portuguese music and cinema.
There is also the Ocean Bazar exhibition, a multimedia project and installation created from 16mm films that combines a number of images and sensory effects to create a surreal atmosphere of the ocean and sea. The artists, Vivian Ostrovsky and Silvi Simon take scenes from documentaries and project them onto objects that manipulate and fracture the images to provide an atmosphere of deconstructed images that flow through the exhibition space as a distant memory from the beach.
For the full show schedule and further details on this increasingly popular cinematic festival follow the link to their website now:
By Lucy Mclean