On this International Workers’ Day we pay tribute to working people from various parts of the world, who even in other invented dimensions live in contexts of uncertainty and insecurity. Here we highlight five films from various sections of the festival which underline that the demand for better working conditions is still today an urgent revolution.
On the banks of the Nile, in Sudan, we meet Maher, an exile from Darfur and protagonist of the film The Dam, by Ali Cherri. The non-professional actor Maher El Khair makes bricks in life and in fiction, in exhausting days of work that he combines with the construction of a structure of his own, made of mud. The decaying reality is interrupted by the disappearance of his creation. A film that represents invisible violence, with the Sudanese Revolution as a political backdrop. It will be screened for the first time today, at 9:45 pm, at Culturgest.
About the Clouds is an urban fable resulting from María Aparicio’s careful observation of the centre of Cordoba, which seems to tell us that life is what happens while we work, or perhaps it is what happens to us while we go to and from work. Filming with tenderness and kindness, Aparicio portrays four stories of four middle-class characters and their relationship with the working world. To watch again next May 5, at 8:00 pm at Cinema Ideal.
Silvestre Focus, dedicated to labour and the trade union movement, invited the participation of the FILMar project, operated by Cinemateca Portuguesa, which today recovers A Canção da Terra, a film by Jorge Brum do Canto, from 1938. The action takes place in Porto Santo, in a time of drought that brings great difficulties to the local population. Between economic worries and a love triangle, the dice are cast for an unprecedented conflict. The only screening is at 9:30 pm, at Cinema São Jorge.
From Mouth of Madness, Smoking Causes Coughing, the latest film by Quentin Dupieux, presents us with a troupe of anti-tobacco heroes, whose powers are generated by nicotine, who are in need of learning to work together again. Their boss, a mutant rat, forces them to go on a weekend retreat with the aim of improving the team’s development and productivity. The film will be shown again at the Marathon on 5 May, starting at 11:00 pm and through the night till sunrise.
The life of a film producer through Susana Nobre’s eyes. Cidade Rabat looks at a very specific microcosm and shows how life and work quickly blend into a single event. From the Berlinale to IndieLisboa, this film tells of a universal discouragement: the precariousness and difficulty in meeting expectations as a reality that crosses generations. In competition and premiering nationaly, Cidade Rabat can be watched only once: today at 9:30 pm, at Culturgest.
