Screening of the newly restored copy of Dom Roberto preceded by a slide show with commentary by Salomé Lamas.
Ernesto de Sousa was an avid producer of synergies and a prolific multidisciplinary artist. He promoted an experimental and free artistic expression, dedicated himself to the study, promotion, and practice of the arts, as well as to curatorship, critique and essay writing, photography, cinema and theater.
He published extensively in magazines and newspapers since the 1940s, and his art criticism was instrumental in encouraging experimental artistic practices in Portugal. His strong involvement in the film society movement, which he founded in Portugal, was a major contribution towards the outbreak of the “New Cinema” announced by his only feature film, Dom Roberto (1962), awarded twice at the Cannes Festival in 1963.
In the spirit of Ernesto de Sousa, Salome Lamas curates, with the collaboration of Isabel Alves, from the archive of CEMES – Ernesto de Sousa Center for Multidisciplinary Studies a selection of texts ranging from correspondence, articles, critiques, essays, and scripts, thus framing the socio-political intervention of the artist in the creation, production and distribution of moving image. These will be presented in parallel to slides from the shooting of Dom Roberto (1958 – 1962) on which Ernesto intervened at the end of his life.
The screening of Dom Roberto at Cinemateca Portuguesa will be introduced by the curator Lilou Vidal and Salomé Lamas’ commented presentation of the slides and will be followed by an open discussion around the making of the film and its politics of production moderated by Joana Ascensão.
This event is part of Ernesto de Sousa, Exercises of Poetic Communication with Other Aesthetic Operators, curated by Lilou Vidal, and on view at Galerias Municipais de Lisboa – Galeria Avenida da Índia and Galeria Quadrum – between November 27, 2021 and February 27, 2022.