WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE?
Onde Jaz o Teu Sorriso?
Portugal, France | 2001 | 104 min
Pedro Costa filming Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet at work on the editing of their film Sicily!. We watch them discussing, we share the practice of a painstaking work on the images, movement, duration of the shots. While the couple of directors is sitting at the editing table, what unravels before our eyes is a powerful idea of mise-en-scène based on the rigour of the decisions, but is also marked by a profound love for film, as it emerges from their conversations. An editing cut, or a pause, are not technical choices: they become an opportunity to discuss power and form in the seventh art. In the semi-darkness – a kind of black that lets us into another world – of the editing or projection room, a theoretical thought takes shape and becomes a wonderful portrait of two unique directors in film history, observed with as much love and respect by the gaze of their Portuguese fellow. (d.d.)
Local Time
- Timezone: America/New_York
- Date: 08 Nov 2023
- Time: 15:15
Location
- Spazio Alfieri - Via dell'Ulivo, 8, 50122 Florence
Organizer
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Pedro Costa
Pedro Costa is one of the most important directors in contemporary Portuguese cinema. Born in 1959, he studied history and art history at the University of Lisbon before starting to work as an assistant director for some of the most prominent Portuguese directors, including João César Monteiro and André Téchiné. His career as a director began in 1989 with the film O Sangue, presented at the Cannes Film Festival in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs section. Since then, he has directed numerous films that have been screened at major international festivals such as the Venice Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival. His film In Vanda's Room (2000) won the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was selected to represent Portugal at the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category. With his subsequent films Colossal Youth (2006), Horse Money (2014), and Vitalina Varela (2019), Costa continued to work with the same non-professional actors who live in a poor neighborhood of Fontainhas in Lisbon. His work has received numerous awards worldwide, including the Best Film award for Vitalina Varela and the Best Director award for Horse Money at the Locarno Film Festival. Costa is known for his unique aesthetic, which often relies on long static shots and a creative use of light and shadow, for his attention to detail and composition.
