COMPANHIA DA CHANCA

After the end of the first lockdown in 2020, Companhia da Chanca invited four filmmakers to create short videos in local businesses in the municipality of Penela. The result of this relationship between producers, community and filmmakers resulted in 12 artworks that reflect a reality of (rural) life today, against what is often perceived by a large part of the population that maintains an idyllic yet somehow biaised vision of the “country life”.

Click on the chanca (shoe) to watch.

LETTER TO THE DIRECTORS

Chanca, July 22nd, 2020

Dear Claudia, Miguel, Rafael e Tiago,

We hope you are well. We are very excited that you have accepted our invitation. (...) Continuing to breathe life into inland territories, valuing its inhabitants and providing a meaningful dialogue between the asymmetric realities experienced in the country and in the world, is Companhia da Chanca primary ambition. (...)

The mask, which has been present in theater since its origins in Europe, when it comes into play, becomes a projection screen, a space of imagination where, in co-creation, the actor/author and the observer/spectator meet. A certain magical dimension is reached which perhaps finds a parallel with the simultaneously magical and technological dimension of cinema. (...)

It is curious, but it is not surprising that our masters and their masters who were an active part of the theater renovation at the beginning of the 20th century, which gave rise to the new actors, the physical actors, were in part inspired by the genesis of cinematography, namely chronophotography. (...)

Therefore, more than a crossover of disciplines, we understand this meeting as a (re)union of disciplines, in which our practice finds part of its genesis in the very genesis of cinema, almost two hundred years ago... (. ..)

We are grateful for your attention and we hope this letter will help you find your space of freedom within this project!

Fraternal hug and see you soon,

Catarina and Andrew
(see full document)

THE DIRECTORS

Beauty on wheels
Learning to fall
The path is long and the hostel bonito

Cláudia Alves

Cláudia Alves (Lisbon, 1980) is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Portugal. She studied documentary filmmaking at the International Film School of San Antonio de Los Baños (Cuba). Earlier she graduated from the Fine Arts Faculty of Lisbon and has also studied in the Fine Arts’ Academy of Brera, Milan. Cláudia worked in several short and medium-length films as director and cinematographer in Portugal, Brazil and Cuba. Her documentaries have been broadcasted in Portuguese Television and screened in numerous international film festivals. “Compact and Revolutionary” which conceptualizes the contradictions and disappointments of the situation in Cuba, was recognized with Award “Caracol” – best direction – attributed by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), best shortfilm by “Cine Verité” film festival (Tehran) and best documentary at MIFEC (international cinema school film festival). “Tales on Blindness” is her first feature-length film, an essay documentary about the context of the Portuguese presence in India.
FILMOGRAPHY: 2016 – The elephant and the blind men, 5’; 2014 – Tales on Blindness, 120’; 2012 – Sobre Viver, 51′; 2012 – El Cartero, 10’; 2012 – Compacta y Revolutionaria, 33’; 2011 – Ser un Ser Humano – documentary series; 2010 – Brigada Intramuros, 16’; 2010 – For my grandmother II, 8’; 2009 – Pasajeros, 13’; 2009 – Refeição, 4’; 2008 – A Ocasião Seguinte, 36’; 2005 – A Ocasião, 48’.

My little Amazon
Let's see what will happen
Viavai

Miguel Munhá

Miguel was born in 1989 in Costa da Caparica. He studied music at the Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon at an early age, where he finished the 8th grade of the conservatory in cello. With a degree in Art and Multimedia from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, he completed the Erasmus program at the University of Hertfordshire (Hatfield, England). In 2012, he received an Inov-Art scholarship to intern for 4 months at the advertising, television and cinema production company Prodigo Films (São Paulo, Brazil). After his experience in Brazil, he enrolled in the Masters in Cinematographic Development at ESTC, where he obtained a master's degree with a thesis in the direction of actors. He completed his training with workshops and certificates at Raindance, London Film Academy, ARRI Academy, UAL - University of the Arts London, Terre di Cinema. He made the experimental short film “Buôn”, wrote and directed the fictional short film “I will die where I was born” and made and photographed the documentary feature “Never my hands are empty”, with exhibitions at IndieLisboa, Montpellier Danse and Tate Modern. In 2019, he was invited by Congolese artist Faustin Linyekula to direct the photography of his first fictional feature film, filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He recently received the support “New Creators in Cinema, Theater and Dance 2020” from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to produce the short film “Autopsicografia”.

CCBar
Forgotten Knowledge
Monte Formigão

Rafael Almeida

Rafael Almeida is a Portuguese filmmaker, graduated in Cinema, from the University of Beira Interior. Born in Figueiró dos Vinhos, the young filmmaker makes through the audiovisual producer ARTEiMANHA, several advertisements, event coverage, institutional videos, video clips and short films. He has made several short films in recent years, such as "Demência" (2014), broadcast on RTP2's Cinemax Curtas program, with an interview with the director, 2015, selected for the competition of Leiria Film Fest, 2016, Shortcutz Porto, 2015, Shortcutz Lisboa , Visual Rehearsals of the Caminhos do Cinema Português Festival, Best Portuguese Horror Short Film of the 8th edition of MOTELx: Lisbon International Horror Film Festival, Shortcutz Xpress Faro and Xpress Viseu, 2014; “What is Made of Days in the Cave” (2016), accepted at the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival, 2016, selected for the competition for Best Portuguese Film, from the 36th edition of Fantasporto: Porto International Film Festival and nominated for the Sophia Student Award for Best Fiction Film, by the Portuguese Academy of Cinema, 2015; "Day of Exaltation" (2017), "Discovering the Perfect Variable" (2018), "Igor" (2020) and "Fragas de São Simão" (2020).

Central Bakery
J.Reis
Santamarauto

Tiago Hespanha

He majored in architecture in 2004 and received a master’s degree in creative documentary from Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University in 2012. He has been a partner at the production company TERRATREME since 2008. In 2006 he participated in a workshop on documentary filmmaking held by the Ateliers Varan in Lisbon and produced by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Since then, he has been working as a director in his own films and has taken on different roles in other projects. In 2009 he worked as a trainee at the Ateliers Varan in Paris. He teaches at the DOCNOMADS - European Documentary Master Course.
He directed the following films: INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, co-directed with Frederico Lobo (2014 - World Premiere at “Visions du Réel”, Nyon, Switzerland); GUIDED TOUR (2009 - Audience Award at Indielisboa); THE GIFT FROM AFAR (2008 – Included in the collection "So close, So far" released in DVD by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation); “GROUND GLASS I, II” (2007 – First prize at Lisbon’s Microfilms Festival); SHOW HOME (2007) and QUINTA DA CURRALEIRA (2006 – Primeiro Olhar Award at “Encontros de Cinema e Video de Viana do Castelo”).

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Companhia de Penela invites filmmakers to make videos of small local businesses