Directed by
Catarina Mourão
year
2015
Duration
102 minutes
cast
Catarina Mourão
Maria Rosa Figueiredo
crew
Script Catarina Mourão
Photography João Ribeiro and Catarina Mourão
Sound Armanda Carvalho
Editing Catarina Mourão and Pedro Mateus Duarte
Music Bruno Pernadas
Production Maria Ribeiro Soares
Co-Production Scottish Documentary Institute
Synopsis
Every family has its secrets, my family is no exception. A slow pan reveals a room full of objects and paintings. At the end of the pan we see an old man fiddling with something on a desk. The camera comes closer and the old man addresses the camera and shows the audience his unexpected collection of pipe-bags. At some point he says these bags could become great toys for his future granddaughters who could make them into dolls dresses, he mentions an imaginary granddaughter named Catarina playing with these bags. This is a scene from an archive I found recently in Portuguese Television and it is part of a program shot in 1967 called The collector’s club. The old man is my grandfather, I was born only three years later. My grandfather wanted to be a writer and my grandmother and her family forced him to become a notary and accept a job far from the family. This was 1926, the very beginning of Salazar’s dictatorship in Portugal. In this film I want to unravel the secrets and mysteries of my Portuguese family during dictatorship. The film will be my journey through my findings between past and present trying to make sense of what has once been kept away from me.
Awards
2015 IndieLisboa Festival Internacional de Cinema Independente - Prémio do Publico para Melhor Filme (AudienceAward for BestFilm)
2016 Filmes do Homem – Prémio Melhor Documentário Português
2016 Festival Internacional de Documentário de Melgaço – Prémio Melhor Documentário Português
Festivals and exhibitions
2015 Rotterdam International Film Festival (World Premiere)
2015 Viennale - ViennaInternationalFilm Festival
2015 Porto/Post/DocFilm& Media Festival
2015 Iberodocs, Edinburgh
2015 Doc’sKingdom Seminário Internacional de Cinema Documental - Arcos de Valdevez
2015 IndieCork - Festival Internacional de Cinema Independente
2015 Semana de Cine Portugués de Buenos Aires, Rosário e Córdoba
2015 Semana de Cine Portugués de Montevideo - Uruguay
2015 The Portuguese Conspiracy UK - Mostra de Cinema Português
2015 Cineclube de Faro - Mostra de Cinema "Laços Familiares"
2016 Kinemathek Hamburg – MetropolisKino
2016 Mostra de Cinema Português em Macau – Cinemateca Paixão
2016 European Union Film Festival – Bangkok, Tailandia
2016 FilmsFemmesMéditerranée - Marseille
2016 DokuArts, Essaydox – Berlim
2017 Nucivo - Núcleo de Cinema e Vídeo da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
2017 Fundação Moreira Salles – Rio de Janeiro
2017 Mostra Internacional de Cinema Fronteiras
2018 Nafa Film Festival – Cluj Romenia
2018 "Martes de Cine. Proyección de ‘Amor’ y el documental
‘A Toca do Lobo’"
2019 Portuguese Women Directors - ICS
2019 Le Zola Cinéma
2019 Universidade Federal de São Carlos
2020 C.A.L. - Cinema ao Ar Livre
2021 No País do Cinema 2021
2021 Frames - Portuguese Film Festival
2021 COCP - Clube Objetivo Cinema em Penafiel
2022 Kino Sõprus
