“Call things by their name” is an expression that in Portuguese means not being afraid to name something by its true nature. The program’s title is borrowed from the book that, in 1977, writer Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen wrote with this expression in mind: “The Name of Things” exposes, through metaphors, the political mistakes of the years that precede its release — fascism and the colonial war, oppression and injustice —, clearly and without subterfuge, in a poetic gesture that also incorporates political denunciation. This program of Portuguese short films is based on the same idea of showing films that, without disguise, reveal what lies beneath the surface. Times have changed, and so have political mistakes.
In Percebes, natural beauty and tradition are threatened by the merciless logic of touristification, in a distortion of identity whose consequences are becoming visible. 2720 gives body and voice to the invisible who struggle to survive on the urban margins, and to a threatened community that persists in resistance. In The Extraordinary Adventures of the Young Stone Maiden, a statue awakens to political consciousness, subverting its sculptural innocence. And in Redemption, historical figures from European politics recall, with nostalgia and contradiction, key moments from a past that still shapes the present, in an attempt to redeem themselves for the errors now mercilessly revealed.
These are films that, like Sophia’s writing, name things for what they are: memory, struggle, inequality, resistance. Works that reject the illusion of neutrality and affirm cinema as a poetic space for revelation and political discourse. On the other hand, they also showcase some of the most important authors of the many who began with short films and who emerged during the years of Curtas Vila do Conde (all of whom won awards at the festival, founded in 1993), changing forever the face of Portuguese cinema.
Programme curated by Miguel Dias, the head of Curtas Vila do Conde – International Film Festival.
Duration: 82 min.
Age limit: N-13
