An introduction to the cinema made by Lusophone women, around the world, which functions as the pilot episode of a series that’ll be directed by Luísa Sequeira — who had made a documentary on Bárbara Virgínia (Who is Bárbara Virgínia?, 2017), the first Portuguese director and the first woman to present a feature film at Cannes. The film is narrated by a fictional Virginia, played by Joana Linda, as she also did in Sequeira’s feature film.
After having directed the feature film Quem é Bárbara Virgínia?, Luísa Sequeira recovers the figure of the first woman director to make a fiction feature film in Portugal (to which, once again, the photographer and director Joana Linda gives body) to tell us, in an epistolary style, the history of Lusophone cinema made by women. This is the project of a television series, of which the pilot episode is now being presented. Virgínia/Sequeira begin by mentioning two seminal women in cinema’s history: Alice Guy-Blaché, a pioneer in all senses, and Lotte Reiniger, who directed the first animated feature film. Based on their example, she highlights Portuguese-Brazilian filmmaker Carmen Santos, a silent film actress who worked with Humberto Mauro (Sangue Mineiro) and Mário Peixoto (Limite), but later launched herself into production and direction, dying the very same year she (Bárbara Virgínia) arrived in Brazil. A story that has yet to be told. (Ricardo Vieira Lisboa)
