They are two completely different proposals from two Portuguese fashion designers for this fall-winter 2018. Two perspectives that focus on the lines, geometry and luxury of materials.

Miguel Vieira presents a collection entitled "reflected reflections", which seeks to question whether the clothes we wear are the reflection of ourselves, or the reflection of how others see us in them?
We are influenced by emotions and we transmit visual perceptions, as in a game of mirrors that defines what is seen and how it is seen. The color palette includes dark and light gray, black, navy blue, red and white marshmallow. The silhouettes are slim, with contrasting volumes in maxi and mini sizes, through structured pieces, some of them being oversized. One of the details of the clothes was the use of tailoring fabrics, one of the trends of this autumn and winter, with custom prints, fabric blends, through the creation of layers with casual elements and elements worked as pleats, with manipulation of fabrics, knits and imitation leather prints.

Carlos Gil told us a "Magic Tale" that proposes a young and contemporary image. A look with attitude, combining elements of retro and naïf inspiration, in elegant and distinct pieces.
With inspiration in the world of children, the designer reproduces prints with children's motifs clean and acrylic applications that blend with geometric patterns. The same pattern occurs at different scales and the textures appear tone on tone, creating a new notion of proportion and movement. Overlays reveal themselves layer by layer, overlapping textures, tones and transparencies.
The perfect image is achieved with simple and spontaneous combinations, revealing sporting details and composing an urban look of luxury. The loungewear inspiration once again takes on a prominent role and takes on the fact of training as the "must have" of this season. Wide tailored trousers are reinventing themselves and casual dresses in luxury materials become the key pieces of this winter. The coats take on an oversized waist girdle and appear in flat colors with large utility pockets, reinforcing the casual chic mood, brand image of Carlos Gil's collections. A chromatic palette with colors as distinct as pink powder, cat's eye yellow, green water, dusk blue, burnt orange, coral and black, allied with luxurious materials such as brocades, velvets, bulky, delicate tulles, shiny fabrics and soft cashmere. In this winter of genuine combinations and purity of cut, we are stuck in a magical narrative that will make us want to dream and play with fashion

It is the first volume of a fantastic saga written by Hélder Martins.

What led you to write about fantastic literature? Why a fantastic Saga soon?
Hélder Martins: Actually, it was an old idea. Not that I had ever intended to become a writer, but there was already an adventure in my mind. I remember my childhood, in my games, imagining characters and visualizing their plots and the way they intersected. So much that when I transcribed them, they were not strange to me and I knew exactly how I wanted them to be. So, when I thought I had the tools I needed, thanks also to my school that gave me good feedback on my literary work, I decided to do a real story. I discovered the way that inspired me most to work, which was to sit in the cafe to the sound of Japanese music and make a whole first volume on paper and pen.

Why a fantastic saga?
HM: Because it is in how I see myself. I hardly liked to read until I had in my hands on a subject that most excited me. I crossed from non-reading to devour books of the fantastic. I find it a very complete literature. Has action, suspense, love, comedy, all enveloped in a contagious fantasy. For this reason, I ventured into my own demand, with "The Temple of Borkudan", and give readers what they liked to recognize, a fantastic adventure.

What are the main challenges of this type of writing? What was harder and easier?
HM: I think the most difficult is the rigor due to this type of epic theme. It involves some study and analysis of the architectural details of the time. But it turns out to be interesting to discover certain details that solved at the time what for us today is normal. Where I had more freedom, was in the parts of greater action, where I got a better detail by my practice in the martial arts, namely kickboxing. Thanks to this, it allowed me to be exact in situations of positioning and balance in the fighting that unfolded. Of course, the fanciful part of the theme of my work also becomes a support and to overcome some difficulties.

The epilogue is a struggle of good versus evil. Why did you decide to start your saga like this?
HM: My favorite literature is the fantastic. I delight in departing for an adventure. Distinct characters, united in a cause that makes them common. However, in my readings, I always see epic worlds already created, without any allusion to what led them there. I wanted to innovate. Start my first book in an explanation of what I think was my Bing Bang of the fantastic. In what is the eternal struggle between good and evil, to see in both entities the creation of the world below. And with it the appearance of the first races to a land of the unknown.

Your main character has many flaws, is not the typical selfless hero that is usually enjoyed in this type of reading. Why did you create it like that?
HM: Because in the end it's only human. I wanted a character that each chapter read is just as much as the one who reads it. Who gets annoyed, who says nonsense, who is afraid, who loves, who is shy. That with each step that gives is divided in the choices of the day to day. Thus, giving motto to what I intend to pass to each book of mine: "The eternal battle between the desire to do what is right and what is right to do." This is the real character, which brings the reader closer. Not a superhero, but someone who will grow up with his decisions. Positively and negatively.

You also have an amnesiac dragon, and this leaves the reader somewhat bewildered, with a group of characters who have little or nothing heroic.
HM: The amnesia of the dragon is already a preparation for what will be the end of the saga. But yes, it's a peculiar group of characters. Peculiar, but rich in a human component that binds us to each adventure. With a little of me, with a little of who knows me, with a little of whom I know. At the end of the day, it's a set of characters to evolve with one another, in the best of virtues and in the worst of defects.

When did you start writing the book, did you have any idea that the saga would continue?
HM: When I started to write, I had already idealized end. The saga is long, as I have always enjoyed in the genre of fantasy. These characters and this adventure have much to give readers. It has action, has a curious suspense by the way the outcomes surprise us. Having already a beginning and a foreseen end, the rest is a medium that even surprises me. Incidentally, in my second book, "The Wing of Consequence," I myself was anxious about what was to come in the next chapter.

The names are one of the many curious points of your book, how did you invent them?
HM: Actually, names are the real challenge. But to help me, I use my experience. The places where I have already passed and with great significance for me, as is the case of the island of Madeira, or the names of those who are close to me. I lift them up a little, add some vowels and consonants and I see in my characters and cities what is important to me.

Is it very difficult to be accepted as a writer of the fantastic in a country like ours?
HM: A lot. Perhaps more to be seen on a cover of the fantastic, a national name. Yes, I could have adopted a pseudonym, but I want to be recognized by my own name. I believe it is a theme appreciated by many and even in the feedbacks I have already achieved, I had good criticism even of those who were not fond of the genre. I confess that it is a difficult field to go to, but it has been gratifying and even if there is only one person waiting for my next volume, it is worth writing it.

What can you say about the next part of the saga?
HM: I can advance a more human side of the main character. One side out of what we expect a hero to do. It will surprise readers and we will see the motto of my books at a level that will relate to some time in their lives. Above all, it is a story written with great dedication and passion, for the rest I can only hope you enjoy.

The Ermo who owe nothing to the name are a young musical duo that appear in 2012 with a self-titled EP and whose next album "comes here" throws them in the limelight of music in Portugal. With an electronic sound with a strong Portuguese musical influence, this band from Braga recently launched their last work Lo-fi Moda, which distanced itself from its other recordings, but not from its Portuguese essence.

I would like to know how
Ermo project comes with this aspect of Portuguese music and at the same time electronic? You are instrumental and voice.
António Costa: We met a few years ago, since 2011, we became friends and it was not something much thought, the part of the Portuguese music, in fact it is a sonority that we are leaving very out of this new work. But for a long time it was like this, I cannot explain why, it was just what we felt at the time and now we are thinking of different lyrics and sounds that do not reflect that much.

When we hear the albun there is always an electronic sound in the background and what changes is the lyrics. What kind of instruments did they use?
Bernardo Barbosa: We started using guitars, but the instrumentation is always on the computer.

Does it start there, or do some of the themes emerge first in the lyrics?
BB: There are some tracks where we have the theme that we want to deal with and maybe we'll start from that. We took a sample and we are going through the Portuguese sonority and only later we fit some instrument, or we used only the computer, or some chords. It works on top of that.

So, what is the guiding line of your work?
AC: We have a 2012 EP that has no name. The 2015 album is entitled "Amor vezes Quatro" the 2013 is called "Come around here" has 8 tracks and results from what we are feeling, there is no line. But in this last work we really wanted to make this separation in relation to the previous records, so we had two years of silence, we wanted to make a paragraph.

Why are you singing in a serious sound?
AC: We also wanted to get away from this record, now the voices are lighter. In 2013, this intonation mostly happened, it was not very thoughtful, we used a lot of sharp sounds in our songs, to make melodies, I cannot tell you if it's something purposeful. The lyrics are serious in their content and maybe because of this comes that more serious sound.

You said that are going to present a new record and it is different, how does it differ?
AC: We are no longer so dependent on the Portuguese theme, we are not so connected to this medium. It is a more urban and young album, we are a band that will grow to maturity if you notice the professionalism of what we are doing and the themes.
BB: It's less classic, we used to get a lot from Zeca Afonso, Madredeus and José Mário Branco.

And in terms of sonority?
AC: It's more electronic and is aimed at a different audience. We used the synthesizer more, less digital and there was an attempt to make bolder arrangements, we left aside that poetic centrality that was for many years and tried to do something more cohesive in terms of instrumentality.

Is the portugality underline again on this album or not so much?
AC: Not much, we continued to sing in Portuguese, is something that will always be present, even if we go somewhere else.
BB: And never equate singing in a language other than Portuguese.

Electronics are associated with English, even in Portuguese bands.
AC: Our natural sound is Portuguese and we do not want to change.

Is it very difficult to write the lyrics? And who writes?
AC: We both.

Reflects your life?
AC: Yes, that's what we thought and felt. Reflect also what we are hearing. That's what we got out of us. We work what we liked and it is our aesthetics

On this album it seemed to me that you put great emphasis on the words and the intonation of the voice.
AC: Yes, anyone who works with the voice has to worry about intonation, the way you put the voice, and there is the right and wrong way to sing a word. We strive in this direction, maybe someone else would not worry about the diphthong, or how the accent will be used in a song and therefore there are words that should not be used. The lyric however good it must be thought at when placed along with the melody, it is always a slave to the way you are singing it.

This new record how would you define it?
AC: Although less epic and dense is more urban, more city and less countryside. We live in the city is more underground in this aspect.
BB: It is more likely to be appreciated by someone who does not speak Portuguese. We play much more with the sonority of the music, or anything you want to hear about Portugal is a record that can be heard outside and is the first step in that direction.

Will you go on an international tour with this new album?
AC: Yes, we are going to Brazil and experience Asia one of these days. Projects for the future stay right there.

How is the receptivity of a work like yours so different, in a country like Brazil?
AC: We went to a rock festival, we met a lot of people who liked our sound, but maybe it would be more welcome if it were in São Paulo. But, we learned immensely as professionals.

What's the name of the new album?
AC: Lo-fi fashion. (laughs)

Not a very Portuguese title, why?
AC: It's like having a piece of clothing for being "dodgy." It's like having jeans that you've worn for 15 years and fit your legs. (laughs)

There are 3 didactic volumes launched by the writer Zita Cardoso who intend to show the symbols of the autonomy and independence of the archipelagos of Madeira, Azores and Green Cape.

One of the books you wrote addresses the 42 years of Green Cape independence?
Zita Cardoso: Exactly, there are 42 years of change from the political regime of a dictatorship to an autonomous model, but curiously it is a transverse phenomenon that has joined and was transformed into a parallel administrative system with more or less achievements. Green Cape had a stage that wanted to be autonomous like the Portuguese autonomous regions, but with the formation of the PAICV(African Party for the Liberation of Green Cape) party that is a dissident of the PAGC ( African Party if independence of Guinea Bissau and Green Cape), when the separation occurs they intend to be an independent country. It is necessary to contextualize this question of Green Cape and Guinea Bissau they were both colonies and Madeira and the Azores were not.

In the case of Azorean autonomy, the book focuses on what aspects?
ZC: It is a pedagogical and didactic book, it is patriotic and aims to bring people closer to their democratic institutions. It is also a work on citizenship and is a fundamentally an educational one. This is one of the books that addresses the three archipelagos in the Atlantic, I have the first edition that focuses on Madeira, I will now, resume a second publication soon. On the Azores is already a second edition and the third volume is on the independence of Green Cape which is a different situation because it is a former African colony.

For the book of Green Cape did you have to make an exhaustive survey?
ZC: Yes, I had to go to this archipelago and talk to the authorities, I did an investigation in place and I went to all the islands of the archipelago, traveled from one point to the other, took photographs and found that the autonomy in this case means a transformation society and had to be represented in the book. In the case of the Azores the works are mainly on the coast, the Azorean wager was more to create maritime infrastructures, while in Madeira the interventions were more on land, tunnels, for example.

Regarding Green Cape, what are the main symbols of its independence?
ZC: I met the family of Amilcar Cabral, his wife and also this coumarate in the independence that is the commander Honório Chantres, who lives on the island of Santo Antão and it was he who encouraged me to do this work. He provided me with all the data and despite his 76 years of age he is a perfectly lucid person and his testimony in the book addresses the signs of independence. He accompanied the separation between the party of Guinea Bissau and Green Cape. I have known the root of the independence of this archipelago and this testimony should be passed on to the new generations and to the schools, because society in general has to know how democracy was reached in the countries where they live.

So what are the symbols of Cape Verde's independence?
ZC: The writers who through their writing questioned the independence of their country, then I approach the different ministers of each island, the assembly as it was elaborated and the various changes it had over time. São Vicente was the scene of several political rallies for the freedom of Green Cape. It is above all a political and libertarian work.

And education is another great symbol?
ZC: A lot and also the two parties in power and that has taken turns in different governments and I must say that Cape Verde is a country turned to modernity. It is very close to European culture.

So, unlike the Atlantic autonomies whose symbols of autonomy are infrastructures, in Green Cape, are they people?
ZC: Yes, it's the people who made the country. The works are not as expressive as in the autonomous islands. There is also another factor, there were currents that only defended the autonomy of Green Cape, but since it was a Portuguese African colony and Madeira and the Azores were not, it did not happen. There is a European institution for the outermost regions, such as the Caribbean, Guadeloupe and Martinique, which were French settlements, are still French "autonomous" colonies, then the island of Réunion and French Guiana, which are French, they have not obtained independence, but are autonomous regions, never disconnected from the umbilical cord that is the mother country. Then there are the Canary Islands, Madera, the Azores and Green Cape is just an observer country, not integrated into the concept of the outermost region.

In a catastrophic scenario why risk your life in recognizing the interior of a collapsed building? A small electronic "miracle" was developed by a group of students of Electronic Engineering and Telecommunications of the University of Aveiro (UA) and aims to be a precious help when all the minutes are essential to save lives.

It is a robot capable of entering the debris, which can map the space in three dimensions, detect fires and measure temperature, humidity and carbon monoxide, in real time and send the data abroad. Small and autonomous, this electronic device was conceived by 15 students of the Integrated Master in Electronic Engineering and Telecommunications within the scope of the curricular unit of Electrical Engineering Project taught by professor Nuno Borges Carvalho. The robot is already in the prototype phase and waiting for all the support, in the future, to be fundamental in the work of Civil Protection. To this end, students have already outlined the HART (Human Aid Robotic Technologies), a company that, when born, will support the development and commercialization of the robot.

Unique design in a market where there are abundant solutions focused essentially for military environments and that make use of the cameras only for image collection, the robot also has for novelty the ability to dispense an operator since, say the students of the Department of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics , in the final stage of development the robot will be able to move and acquire information autonomously.

At 1.5 kilograms and 23 by 28 centimeters, the electronic device can easily be used in all scenarios that need to measure environmental conditions and where obtaining a three-dimensional model can be useful. In these scenarios students include fires, partial collapses, caves, demolitions, and reconnaissance, search and rescue operations.
The robot can also be used to assist in assessing the integrity and extent of damage in a building affected by a claim. From inside the debris the automaton will be able to report on the temperature, humidity, concentration of carbon monoxide and presence of fires. It will also be possible to visualize a three-dimensional model of the space where the robot is located.

All these data will be made available in real time to the rescue teams through a computer application created for this purpose, where the information is presented in a clear, simple and concise way, to accelerate the process of analysis and decision making.
At this stage of development, the students point out, the robot is already able to do the environmental sensing and generate the respective 3D model. Soon, it will be the turn of the implementation of the ability to acquire and superimpose various 3D models and the installation of the autonomous movement.

The exhibition opened during the London Design Festival until the 25th of October in the Design Museum of London.

In the context of the exhibition “Set In Stone”, part of the First Stone program, organized by experimentadesign in partnership with Assimagra and curated by Guta Moura Guedes. The charismatic English communication designer Peter Saville, co-founder of the legendary independent publishing company Factory, presents an unpublished work, produced specifically for this exhibition.

In Memoriam by Peter Saville, author of several covers (New Order, Joy Division, Roxy Music, Pulp, David Byrne, among many others) is a sculptural interpretation of the graphic that demonstrates the successive pulsations of CP1919 (the first 1967), which Saville used for Joy Division's iconic cover of Unknown Pleasures in 1979. The chart, which represents a linear illustration of the frequency and symmetry of a temporal event, was transposed to 3D by Saville and his colleague Bill Holding of the Morph in 2002, resulting in a sculpture from a moment in time. The entropic associations that inhabit the history of this work are amplified by this monumental stone reproduction - reflecting what Michael Bracewell writes about Saville's work for the Joy Division, seeing it as "the documentary evidence of a crematory in the depths of space".

Made in marble Dark Ruivina, with 305x305x1077mm and 250kg in weight, In Memoriam is presented in a set of 20 works of 9 architects and designers, bringing together the three work areas architecture, product design and graphic design, in the exterior and interior of The Design Museum, opened in 1989.

In addition to the work of Peter Saville, the pieces presented in London are written by the Portuguese Eduardo Souto de Moura, Paulo David, Miguel Vieira Baptista and Jorge Silva, from Chilean studio Elemental, English Jasper Morrison, Cypriot Michael Anastassiades and the duo Austrian and American Sagmeister & Walsh.

Peter Saville
He was born in Manchester in 1955. He is an artist and designer who has made a remarkably unique contribution to culture. As founder and art director of the independent British label Factory Records, he reached a wide audience through pop music, in particular with the covers he created for the Joy Division and New Order between 1979 and 1993. His radical creations broke all the rules, omitting information about artists or titles, fundamentally questioning the forms of consumption and communication. His latest projects encompass design, art and culture. Peter Saville lives and works in London.

First Stone

Is the result of a project involving about two years, where 24 architects and designers were invited to explore the potential of Portuguese marble and limestone, the presence of the stone in public and private spaces was explored, making use of the versatility of the material in terms of its color and texture. In total, 51 new works, new perspectives and new methods appeared during the process. Artistic freedom was paramount in this project, which expanded the potential of the stone, expanding the relationship between material, design and industrial and manufacturing processes.

Set In Stone

Projects:
Eduardo de Souto Moura (PT), Conversadeira, 2017
Elemental (CL), A Thing Not An Object, 2016
Jasper Morrison (GB), Alpinina, 2017
Jorge Silva (PT), Pictorama, 2017
Michael Anastassiades (CY), Forbidden Fruit, 2017
Miguel Vieira Baptista (PT), O Peso da Pedra, 2017
Paulo David (PT), Mult, 2017
Peter Saville (GB), In Memoriam, 2017
Sagmeister & Walsh (US), Do not Look Back, 2017

This unusual project arose from Edgar Vicente's desire to make Portuguese music with other musicians and what started with only six elements was gaining strength and more instruments and at this moment is a band that more than singing in Portuguese makes a bridge between the traditional sound and a more contemporary layered sound, resulting in songs that go to meet the Portuguese and the identity of the band as a whole.

Does the creature begin with you, with traditional Portuguese root music and them you create a gigantic band?
Edgar Vicente: My idea was to meet my identity, my generation and with people in general, from the youngest to the oldest. I wanted it to be an identity in unison, to get people together, at a time when love is more globalized and day after day we lose this idea of belonging. We have to constantly revisit and started this idea in Serpa with the aim of recording an album. What I wanted was to go to the tradition and realize what that was, which is no longer part and there arises a need, also, to need more people, more creative to help me to realize this and the invitations began to appear. They are people with whom I had wanted to work, but this opportunity had not yet arisen, like Carlos and Gil and others with whom I had not yet played before and who wanted to take them in these musicalities.

What I found curious about listening to the album, "Aurora" and hear it on stage that is a brutal difference. On the CD the sound was less lively, more polished, very well finished and mastered, but I preferred the versions on stage.
EV: This has to do with the fact that the album was made three years ago.
Gil Dionísio: It is three years of road, from this revisiting inside, was the being forced to have a real look out there and to what is around us and that made there things that had been done at the time, I had 24.25 years old and you had 19?
EV: 21 years
GD: Now Edgar is 25 years old and there's a brutal difference. A person thinks differently than at least four years ago and I will be almost 30 years old. That is, we grew up with this songs that we did and there were things that failed, there were themes that now have more force and are more beautiful and others that was the reverse, songs that ended up having a much less strong dimension. Above all, when I hear the album I create a relationship as I listen to it and I mature it more. The cover itself is a piece, it's all we want to do and over time, on stage, we created a very intimate relationship with these songs, with the Portugality, whatever that means, but that can convey so much. Over time we created this relationship with this look, with this way of making music in an emotional way, or as Edgar says of who "is here", it is a tradition of Portuguese traditional music, pimba music and all music of the world that exists at the same time and that influenced that same musicality. That is, when we bring traditional music we can not only look at the "modinha", we looked at people, the stories and a whole set of things that are around it so that this relation with the subjects is more intense, more emotional. When we get to the stage there is a whole novel that never ends and that is what you notice.

You are many, about 11 musicians on stage, it must have been difficult to combine this and all the musical personalities, or not?
EV: That's one of the main aspects of this group, the fact that we're different and we've all started it realizing that we were very different, so, there's a lot of tolerance. Every once in a while there is one that advances and says that in rock you do not do that, we did not know what we were looking for or what we were doing, we just knew that we were all very different. We open a great space for tolerance, to take advantage of what others will do at departure, because we know it will be different from what we are going to bring.
GD: There's a very important aspect here, as a group and what we're all doing it, is that we do not know what is this about traditional music. In the band I discovered a lot and when we do something different from each other this opens all possibilities and when we get into this pit all together are many ideas, many points of view, but in general is let's find out what is this great, giant inheritance.

Is it, therefore, that the songs are so long? Because comparing with a melody of Portuguese music are quite extensive.
EV: We liked to reach a certain state with the songs, which does not mean that the paths do not reach certain peaks, but in some subjects already it is possible to feel a history.

But there is a theme that seems to tell more than a story, the song that tells of the girl who does not want to go to Mass and the young man who, although he did not want to go to university, does not pay. 

EV: It's actually the other way around, she's going to Mass and I'm going to college not because I did not want to, but because no one told me not to go.

I thought there were two songs in a single song.
EV: Exactly, this theme is called "It's the practice" and we ended up singing that there are things that no matter how traditional they are, or why it has to be that way, if we think about what we're getting into we end up not doing them. This is no more than asking questions, that's what people suggest. It's good not to follow the tide, it's good to look around and paddle down other routes where we can get there faster.

In the concert already sang one of the themes of the next record, "The bride".
GD: We sang five songs from the next album. "a noiva", "bem bonda", "lobbies man", "dá praxe" and "a gaita".

Why did you decide to start presenting these themes on stage to get feedback from the public?
EV: I think it's because of this relationship that the band has to be constantly renewed. We would never be able to play the same repertoire for three years in a row, songs will come naturally to us to stimulate as a group and to captivate ourselves. It's so great when someone comes in with a song for the first time, we rehearse it and have a new moment that brings us a renewed magic on stage. The show is much more than that.

"The Bride" is not a definite name for the album?
EV: We still do not know what the name of the album will be.
GD: I cannot do this projection.
EV: I know what you're going to call (laughs)
GD: It's "bem bonda" but there's still no certainty. Curiously we liked to know what we were actually doing, we liked to look at what we are doing. We're still going to record this end of the year and the beginning of the next, we do not have any projected dates or names yet, although I have no problem playing the songs before. I cannot anticipate what the album is going to be because part of this course is to find out what this record is going to be. This band is this, even in the concerts we do not know how it will be. Curiously, about the songs we do not think they are long, they are layered narratives that we discover each time we play them. "The Bride," or "The Bagpipe" we do not know how it will sound. It will probably be like what you saw on stage and I do not even know what it will be, obviously we've already thought about it, but maybe at that point other things will come and it's time to give us that answer. Let's live, play and when you get to the album it's going to be a mix, but I do not know how it's going to sound.

This is a diary about an Angolan political prisoner, Luaty Beirão. An account in the first person that serve as testimony of the daily life during the 13 days that he was imprisoned in a jail of Angola and that still includes an interview with Carlos Vaz Marques where he approaches the 36 days of a hunger strike that left him in danger of life.

Is this a diary about the time you were in jail?
Luaty Beirão: It's actually 13 days when I had access to a notebook and a pen the year I got there. Later it is compensated with a deeper interview of Carlos Vaz Matos in which it is approached what is not registered in the diary. They are basically thoughts, lyrics, things of the next visit that had to bring me, has a little of everything, is very mixed.
Is it the one-year report?
LB: There is a three-month hiatus of house arrest, after the conviction we returned to the prison where we stayed since June 20th, 2015 until we were released on the 29th, one a year and nine days later.
What has changed in Angola?
LB: It has been changing, there has been a leap since this period when we were imprisoned. There is a slow awakening of consciousness, a timid silence of fear, there is a reversal in how people relate to their own fear, they begin to talk more and protest even in smaller spaces such as social networks, yet they do not transport it to the street, but feels that it is disappearing little by little. The way is done walking and one step at a time, I also do not know if it would be very good that everything was so sudden, I do not know if we would manage a changeover night, this is how it has to be and is running good. I cannot quantify a time for this change to happen, I know it will not be for us anymore, we are the agents of change, but I do not know if it will be immediate, we must provoke it.
And Portugal should be an agent in this change?
LB: If Portugal is not conniving it would be good, it cannot do more for sovereignty issues. Do not shut down lawsuits that exist here because of crimes that were committed there. They like to say that powers are separate, but it is not always the case here, but the role of not helping those who are there is already something. Is enough.
Do you have a normal life in Angola?
LB: There is no normal life in Angola. Nor do these people who find themselves squandering thousands of euros on watches live normally. Some live-in domes, behind walls, they go out with armored cars which is not normal and the others live in another extreme in search of water, light and food, basic things for the day to day life. None of this is normal. But I realize what you want to ask me, if I am troubled or followed, I think I am in a more discreet way, I used to see them when I went out on the street, but I have the notion, that I and the others are monitored. We learn to live with it too, it is not normal, it is the life we have.

Going back a little to the diary, this is a 13-day record in which you also wrote to not to go crazy.
LB: I was confined to a solitary, I do not know if it was not to go crazy, I do not know what would have happened if we had not access to books and writing, I do not know how I would have dealt with a cell for 3 months, at the level of my psychosomatic state. Well, fortunately after three days we had books, notebooks and pens, which were later taken away when they invaded the cells and sometimes they carried the notebooks and pens. Then came a point where I no longer wanted to write, because I did not know if I would ever see my writings again. This notebook that came out was luck, someone who already had the experience of being imprisoned in Angola knew that this would happen sooner or later and managed to camouflage the notebook on something and that went to the city. I was 100 kilometers from the city.
Do you think that your cry has inspired more people not only in Angola, but in other countries?
LB: I do not know if I could say that it inspired other people all over the world, or in Angola and that this is transforming something. I'm not too worried about ego, vanity, this thing about the self, I do not really like to talk about it. I am not alone, but if what we are doing is transforming, that would be great, not for the sake of vanity, I hope I do not get it. What is being achieved is the social transformation in a political environment that is hostile, I think this is much higher, either by individual action or whoever.
But it helped to make your case known.
LB: There is the stupidity of the totalitarian regimes of not being aware of the limits and the visibility that can be given to a group of people who are small and insignificant and who come to have a stage and a space. It was undoubtedly the great worldwide media spotlight that eventually reversed our situation, otherwise we would be in jail until today.
Were 36 days of a hunger strike, what were the physical and psychological sequels that remain? Did the chronicles help in this direction?
LB: No, because I wrote it before. That was written in the first month, the hunger strike happens in the third month of jail, fortunately when I went to do a series of exams after nothing appeared that would have affected me, it was miraculous. The doctor advised me on the 30th that everything was looking fine, but from then on, I could have an organ failure in a cascade.
And on the psychological level did you fear for enclosed spaces? Or being alone?
LB: No, I like to be alone, maybe it was because of this that solitary did not affect me so much, I had many positive things in the middle of this disorder. It was mainly my family who felt it more. I was "well treated" in prison, my wife even brought me salmon. It even seems that I am minimizing the gravity of the situation, but I prefer to look at what was positive, I had time to read and I was informed about the revolt that was in society and how it started to transform. The worst thing for me was being away from my daughter.
Do you think that the conditions you had in the jail you just mentioned came about because your father was a public figure in Angola?
LB: Mine already passed away in 2006 and my colleagues were also in solitary cells, deprived of seeing each other, I was even further deprived of having visits later and there was an episode of revolt by the way they were treating us. But in those first 3 months all those who had the same prison as me, suffered the same treatment, there was nothing differentiated.
So, what did you notice is that thanks to an international campaign there was a different treatment? Because other types of prisoners who did not have the media spotlight and the actions of non-governmental organizations behind had received the same treatment?
LB: I'm pretty sure of that, yes, I cannot prove it, if it would have been different if it had not been the media spotlight. I know people who are currently political prisoners who are not having the same treatment. And the more they can torture people by depriving them of their rights embodied in the prison law, they do so without hesitation. It is only when people can get the message out that they end up giving in. I have the notion with all the attention we had they were more careful more or less.
And the people you mentioned are in prison and suffering all kinds of torture, is Luaty their voice out now?
LB: I do not like to intitule myself of their voice. I am one more, it is what I have tried to be and not be singularized that way. Therefore, I continue to do what I did before I was arrested and focus on the injustices that are happening in Angola, but I do not consider myself a representative of these people. If you consider me one of them, I already consider myself recognized.

The prize of the 25th edition of Curtas Vila do Conde was given to a Portuguese film by Marta Mateus.

The jury of the international festival considered the film "Farpões baldios" "a work as luminous as it is demanding" that "revives a line of works where childhood unlocks the sufferings, the errors and the virtualities of the past, a tradition that we owe, among others, to Manoel de Oliveira, António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro, Teresa Villaverde ". The short film also won the DCN Beers Grand Prize of the International Competition.
In the same competition, "My Burden" by Niki Lindroth von Bahr won the prize for Best Animation; "O Peixe" by Brazilian Jonathas de Andrade was considered the Best Documentary and "Les Îles" by Yann Gonzalez was awarded the trophy for Best Fiction. The Niepoort Audience Award was attributed by the viewers to the "Retouch" of the Iranian Kaveh Mazaheri.
The Spanish Laura Ferrés won the European Best Short Film Award with "Los Desheredados". The film was thus nominated for the European Film Academy's European Film Awards.
In the National Competition, which had 16 Portuguese films in competition, the winner of the BPI Award and Pixel Bunker was "Où En Êtes-Vous, João Pedro Rodrigues?" By João Pedro Rodrigues, a film that, according to the jury, Capable of blowing up everything, and as soon as possible, "debating with the self-portrait of humanity itself, a general undertaking that is cinema, while shifting the principles of autobiography.
Also for the second consecutive year, the director Rosa Barba won the Experimental Competition, with her new film "From Source to Poem". The Jorge Oculista Group Award was awarded "for the intelligence of its visual and sound proposal, the creation of a non-linear constellation of images and sounds from the world's largest multimedia archive, where the presence of text and typography appear in constant transformation, reflecting the Interests of the artist regarding the permanent loss of essential information". Also in the Experimental Competition, an Honorable Mention was awarded to Lois Patiño for the film "FAJR".

At the Curtinhas, section for youngsters where the jury is composed of children, the MAR Shopping Fair Award was presented to "Revolting Rhymes, Part One" by Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer. In this competition were also distinguished with honorable mentions the films "Jubilee" of Coralie Soudet, Charlotte Piogé, Marion Duvert, Marion El Kadiri and Agathe Marmion; "Lost In Spring" by Fred Leao Prado Wall and "Mindenki" by Kristof Deak.
João Nicolau won the Musical Video Competition with "Old Habits" by Minta & The Brook Trout.
In the Take One! Competition, dedicated to school films, they were given to the short film "De Gente Se Fez História" by Inês Pinto Vila Cova, the IPDJ Prize, the Smiling Prize, the Short Film Agency Award and the Restart Prize . Ricardo Pinto de Magalhães won the Kino Sound Studio Award for Best Director for the "Delphine Trapped" school film.
The winning films repeat, this Sunday, in the Municipal Theater of Vila do Conde, in several sessions. The winners will also be presented, in different cities of the country, through the extensions of the festival that start tomorrow.

An unpublished study that emerged from a challenge launch to a third-year biotech class by Teresa Rocha Santos, lead researcher at the Center for Environmental and Air Studies at the University of Aveiro (UA) end up producing a discovery thanks to the tenacity of a young student, Ana Paços, that Zalerion maritimus, a very common fungus on the Portuguese coast, in an environment similar to that of the sea polluted with microplastics achieves, in only seven days, the reduction of 77% of that toxic material. For the three researchers involved in this research "this is undoubtedly the first study to present bioremediation strategies, a process that uses living organisms to reduce or remove contaminations in the environment, in this specific case of microplastics. Therefore, this work can be considered a first step and a contribution to the solution of this problem ". This is also the first ecological solution ever discovered to combat plastics in the oceans, since optimizing the rare appetite of the fungus resorted to a solution offered by the sea itself. A scientific finding, according to the editor of "Sciene of The Total Environment", where the study was published, opened the door to "a truly new field of investigation."

How did you discover the qualities of this fungus that absorbs microplastics in the ocean?
Teresa Rocha Santos: It is a fungus that is called Zalerion maritime and has the ability to degrade cellulose. So, it is found in the wood in the ocean. Given that cellulose is a rather complicated polymer, we felt we would be able to degrade plastic that is made of polyethylene and this was the case we tested. Another aspect that led us to choose this fungus is that it exists on the Portuguese coast. It was an interesting proposal if we wanted to move forward with the plastic treatment system on our coast. It is a species that already existed and there would be no problem introducing something new.

If it exists on the Portuguese coast, the fungus must be used in controlled areas, why? If we let this fungus act openly does it spread uncontrollably, as algae blooms appear in rivers and reservoirs?
TRS: Exactly, the whole body has a tendency to do that. We cannot introduce it in large quantities, because otherwise it can induce an imbalance in the ecosystem. So, what we must do is create controlled locations to introduce more or less amount of fungus and not leave it to the rest of the ocean.

How can you control this with nets?
TRS: In the same way that algae and fish are produced in aquaculture, a fungus can also be produced under the same conditions. We are still thinking about what we are going to do in the next phase, before we were doing a study with aluminals, then we went to the aquariums where we are now. Since we are in the zone of Aveiro and we have abandoned salinas we will create the necessary conditions to make there a kind of treatment station. This will always be a test, it must be away from aquacultures and other activities of this kind, because we have to be sure that we will not produce any damages, we must properly study the fungus to degrade the microplastics and must to be sure that water contains no toxic components.

Another question I have is if this fungus has any natural predator? That is, there are always living organisms that eat others, this question can be put in the future when you place the Zmaritimum in nets in the ocean?
TRS: We do not know, because this fungus is very little studied, was also one of the reasons why we thought it was also interesting to study it at the time. There are indeed predators, but if we have a closed station this question does not arise, we do not have that problem at the outset. We have collections of this and other organisms that can be purchased to be reproduced in laboratories, so there is no problem of being exhausted in the ocean.

This is a pioneering study, it was published in a scientific journal, but how many years have you been focusing on this study?
TRS: This study started a year ago following an invitation I received to write a book with other authors on microplastics. At the time we found it interesting to try to find, everyone is trying, a solution for their monitoring in the ocean, because it is very important and we have no idea where they exist and in what quantity. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out an exhaustive monitoring, on the other hand, we also felt that a solution was necessary and I decided to launch the topic in the third year of the biotechnology and chemistry department of the AU. A student, Ana Paços, chose this theme because she found it interesting and came to work with us. She was very interested and an excellent student and with the partnerships that we obtained in the laboratory to execute these works we ended up obtaining these results. The work there has already evolved in another way and as she was so interested, this year she wanted to continue working with us on a volunteer basis, although we have other people involved in this subject, she decided to do the master's thesis with us on this same theme. We currently have a team of three people to get the results faster.

This second phase, of testing this fungus in a controlled environment will be how long?
TRS: We do not know yet, because we are doing the study with aquariums, we have been in this aquatic phase since February. From the results we get, which will be between September or October, we have published these results again and made a decision about what we are going to do next. At this point, we decide whether we have advanced more or only in a while and how we are going to move forward, because we have not yet got that notion.