Directed by
Catarina Mourão

year
1997

Duration
45 minutes

Synopsis
The film tells us the story of the confrontation between a group of trendy urban artists who are invited to make public art in different villages of one of Portugal’s poorest and most isolated regions: Alentejo. One of the most repressed areas by the fascist regime before the revolution of 74.

The people in the region weren’t very happy about this cultural manifestation and reacted strongly against several of the different public interventions and installations, specially one of the installations which showed a gigantic portrait of Salazar (our fascist dictator). I believe this documentary will provide an insight into contemporary rural Portugal and the way it has or not managed to deal with the ghosts of fascism. But mainly this documentary will question the concept of “Public Art” specially when in some cases it seems to stand against its public/audience.

crew
Photography  João Ribeiro and Catarina Mourão
Sound  Catarina Mourão, Filipa Mourão and Teresa Fradique
Editing  Pedro Mateus Duarte and Catarina Mourão