RUINS and UPRISE are part of the New Cinema from Portugal cycle, programmed by Indie Lisboa, described as one of “ the most exciting young film festivals”. Both films will be presented by Miguel Valverde, Indie’s director, and RUINS’ screening, opening the cycle on December the 11th, will also count with director Manuel Mozos’ presence.
As we can read on Arsenal’s program, “*RUINS* traces the intrinsic life of empty abandoned building in various regions of Portugal, from Vila do Conde via Lisbon to Porto. Dilapidated residential buildings, factories, movie theatres, churches, theatres, stores, train stations, industrial plants, and a masonry dam seem like ruins of modernity, evoking memories of a society that no longer exists, monuments of a past time. Stories associated with these structures are narrated. RUINS revolves around the relationship between places and memories, spaces and narrations. What connects people to buildings? What remains once they are abandoned and given up?”
UPRISE is described as a film “between life and death, past and present, between memories, fantasies, dream and reality, and beyond any narrative logic. A man visits his dying father in the hospital, where he meets a panic-stricken, pregnant woman who has survived a car crash that killed her husband. A couple living in the countryside is expecting a child, but one evening the soon-to-be father doesn’t return home. The characters, all having to cope with the experience of loss, departure, sorrow, and death, are enveloped in abysmal emptiness.”