Arpad Szenes. [Letter], [1947] March 12, [Pensão Internacional, Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro], [to] Vieira da Silva, [on the ship Campana, bound for Marseille]. [Autograph.]
Intimate writing , edition of correspondence between the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes organized by the Arpad Szenes Foundation - Vieira da Silva.
EXHIBITIONS
in theaters for 9 weeks
PORTUGAL
LISBON
UCI El Corte Inglés
Cinema City Alvalade
Cinema NOS Amoreiras
Cinema Medeia Nimas
O Cinema da Villa
Cinema NOS Almada Forum
OPORTO
Cinema Trindade
UCI Arrábida 20
Cinemax Penafiel
Cineclube do Porto
BRAGA
CinePlace Nova Arcada
PÓVOA DE VARZIM
Cineclube Octopus
BARCELOS
ZOOM Cineclube
VISEU
Cinema NOS Forum Viseu
Cine Clube de Viseu
Grão Vasco National Museum
COIMBRA
Cinema NOS Alma Shopping
Casa do Cinema de Coimbra
CASTELO BRANCO
Cine-Teatro Avenida
LEIRIA
Cinema City Leiria
AVEIRO
Cinema Vida Ovar
SETÚBAL
Cinema City Alegro Setúbal
PORTUGAL
SANTARÉM
Cineclube de Santarém
PORTALEGRE — Festival Periferias
Museu da Tapeçaria de Portalegre
Guy Fino
SÃO BRÁS DE ALPORTEL
Cinemalua
FARO
Cinema NOS Forum Algarve
Cineclube de Faro
BRASIL
Premiere | June 9
São Paulo
Rio de Janeiro
Museum of Modern Art — Rio de Janeiro
Itaú Frei Caneca
Itaú Botafogo
Reserva Cultural
FRANCE
Premiere | June 10
Marseille
Saison France-Portugal — Cinéma Variétés
in the context of Vieira da Silva's retrospective exhibition
"L'oeil du labyrinthe" present at Musée Cantini
SYNOPSIS
“Vieirarpad” starts from the correspondence of the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes, between 1932 and 1961. The letters and the intimacy of the word are the pretext for the exploration of an intimate visuality, where the memory of the 20th century, a century of exiles , articulates with the visual work of Vieira and Arpad, with iconographic elements of their lives and audiovisual archives from different times and geographies, in addition to several relevant testimonies.
From Escrita Íntima, edition of correspondence between the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes organised by Fundação Arpad Szenes - Vieira da Silva.
DIRECTOR'S BIOGRAPHY
João Mário Grilo
Born in 1958. Directing since 1978. His commitment to cinema has always been defined by the connection and passages between real, fiction and imaginary and, for that reason, his filmography includes fiction titles inspired by real events, such as The King’s Trial, The End of the World, The Eyes of Asia, Out of Sight, and documentaries devoted to the relationship between cinema and the “fictions” of other arts: Saramago-Documents, Proof of Contact and The Flying Carpet.
João Mário has split his time between directing and teaching for many years now. As a Full Professor, he teaches a Film Directing seminar and coordinates the new PhD in Artistic Studies, the PhD in Digital Media and MA in Film/Television at the Nova University of Lisbon.
He has published extensively on cinema and contemporary art in Portugal and abroad (namely in Traffic magazine). He is author of several books: The Order in Cinema (1997), The Lessons of Cinema (2006), The Cinema of Non-Illusion (2006), The Imagined Man (2006), The Book of Images (2007), Film & Philosophy: Mapping an Encounter (2014), a collective compendium on the subject, co-organized with Irene Aparício, which was part of the research project with the same name he directed for the Foundation of Science and Technology, between 2009 and 2012.
As a filmmaker he directed his first feature film, Maria, in 1978, followed by The Foreigner (1982), The King’s Trial (1989), The End of the World (1993), Saramago : Documents (1994), The Eyes of Asia (1996), Out of Sight (1998), 451 Forte (2000), The Break (2002), Proof of Contact (2004), The Flying Carpet (2008), Two Women (2010), Your Home (2012), Your Land (2016).
Still, as a film director, he represented Portugal, among others, in the Official Selections of the Festivals of Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Vancouver, S. Francisco, Houston, Rotterdam, Biarritz, Hong Kong, Stockholm. He received, in 1982, the Prix Georges Sadoul, in 1989, the Special Jury Prize at Rio de Janeiro, the Public Prize and the Jury Prize in Biarritz, the PROCIREP Prize in Cannes, Best Documentary Prize at IndieLisboa (2012) and the Paz dos Reis Prize for the ensemble of his career in Oporto (2010).
In 1990, he was the Portuguese representative for the Oscar to the Best Foreign Language Film. Retrospectives of his work were presented in La Rochelle Film Festival, Figueira da Foz Film Festival and a complete retrospective was held last year in LEFFEST.
VIEIRARPAD is the latest documentary in this list. Directed by João Mário Grilo, at the invitation of the Arpad Szenes Vieira da Silva Foundation, following the exhibition Escrita íntima and book of the same name (2014) which brought forth the private correspondence between Vieira and Arpad from 1932 to 1961. JMG's gaze, very close to painting and fascinated by cultural interaction, holds its focus on the art of the two painters and the unusual love story that kept them together for five and a half decades.
The letters they wrote to each other in the few periods when only geography separated them, are a guiding thread in which the fusional nature of the relationship between Vieira and Arpad is revealed, in a passionate osmosis that crosses their exiles and reaches, at times, the dissolution of their gender. The detail with which the couple weaved their joint legacy for a posterity - reconciled with Portugal - gave life to this film which, “in the sense of staging memory, building the future”, in the director’s words, “was already done”.
Vieira da Silva. [Letter], [1955, April, Basel], [to] Arpad Szenes, [51, Boulevard Saint-Jacques, Paris]. [Autograph.]
Intimate writing , edition of correspondence between the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes organized by the Arpad Szenes Foundation - Vieira da Silva.
Vieira da Silva. [Letter], [c. 1951, R. Andrade Corvo, Lisbon], [to] Arpad Szenes, [51, Boulevard Saint-Jacques, Paris]. [Autograph.]
Intimate writing , edition of correspondence between the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes organized by the Arpad Szenes Foundation - Vieira da Silva.
VIEIRARPAD - ESCRITA ÍNTIMA — PRESENTATION
The unveiling of the tenderest and most secret corners of a beautiful relationship between these two artists is provided by the extensive research, survey, selection and organisation of materials carried out by Fundação Arpad Szenes - Vieira da Silva, which culminates in the publication of the book Escrita íntima. The book is the origin of reflections proposed with a latent potentiality for cinematographic language, merged with the power of the written/spoken word and the visual/plastic record.
FILM DESCRIPTION
The film focuses on the correspondence exchanged by the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szènes, between 1932 and 1961. In this snippet of a documentary record, the letters and the intimacy of their words are a pretext for the exploration and restoration of an intimate and powerful visuality, where the memory of the 20th century - and the many exiles and isolations that marked it - is articulated with the visual work of Vieira and Arpad, dotted with iconographic elements of their own lives and audio- visual material of the time.
Filmed in Lisbon, Paris, Lyon, Dijón, Yèvre-le-Châtel and Rio de Janeiro, VIEIRARPAD composes an audiovisual braid in which memory, poetry and intimacy sought to rescue, in the proximity of images, sounds and montage, the intimate land- scapes that the violence of the century episodically tore apart. The narrative is presented in flashback: the film begins in the cemetery of Yèvre-le-Châtel, next to the common grave of Vieira and Arpad, who enter the film as beings from another world, inviting us to follow their story, the geographies, real and imaginary experiences that have crossed paths, their mutual love and their shared passion for art.
A memorial and a monument, the film is conceived as a restoring operation on time and History, in which desire and love were the engines of resistance fed by the fuel of an indefeasible union. A union that precisely for this reason can be further understood and celebrated here in its artistic and political repercussions. Through cinema and its articulations, the film sets on to fulfill the final destination of this exceptionally valuable correspondence, which is also an ode to a simple and admirable happiness.
DATASHEET
Vieira da Silva. [Letter], [1947], December 24-26, [R. Andrade Corvo, Lisbon], [to] Arpad Szenes, [51, Boulevard Saint-Jacques, Paris]. [Autograph.]
Intimate writing , edition of correspondence between the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes organized by Fundação Arpad Szenes - Vieira da Silva.
