Catarina Mourão belongs to a new wave of filmmakers who makes of documentary an art form. She films the daily life of others, becomes invisible, leaving, however, a very personal stamp on her cinematography. His last work with Lurdes Castro reflects on that intimacy, mutual trust that transpires on screen.
Tell me a little of about your first documentary, the Lady of Shandor.
"The lady of Shandor" was not my first documentary, the first thing I did was in 1997 "out of water" and is a film that accompanies various artists through the Alentejo to make public art, they went there to develop several projects on drought and isolation and the film tells us a little of this dialogue with the population. Next came "the lady of Shandor", actually when I was shooting this film, I had to go to Goa in research for that documentary. At the time, I had just finished my Masters degree in film and had gone to India as a tourist and met this woman, the Lady Shandor, Aida Menezes Braganza, and thought it was an interesting personality, especially because her everyday life reflected what Goa was for me at that moment, it was a place with many contradictions were the past and present coexist.
At the skyn deep, why the choice of this theme?
The films take place under the influence of the experiences we have and to do with the way I make cinema. On "the sky deep" arises from a film I did in Porto, which is "the unrest". It is a triptych of the town. The documentary was born of an invitation they made me to develop a movie on a social housing estate in Porto. And so is born the "skin deep", though at the time there was no money to do it, I had to swing towards to accomplish it and I think I'm always looking for the same, although the films are all different.
In this category falls mother and daughter?
No this is a completely different movie. "Mother and Daughter" is a short film that fits into another movie, this one, a work I did for television, which was the mediation of conflicts. The film is about a mother and a daughter who had a family conflict and the resolve through mediation. And what's funny is that the movie is a simulation exercise is because both are training to be mediators. And for me I was a very amusing doing it because it plays with the concept of what is a documentary and what is fiction.
And Lourdes Castro?
Lourdes Castro's film is a contemporary of my first movie "Out of water." After studying film was the first project that I started thinking. Although I had already gone to India to do my first tread. So you see parallels between Lourdes and the lady of Shandor. There are obvious similarities, both are women with a particular life path and live in your home, it's obviously different in each story, but there is a strong relationship with space. Although the film took longer with Lourdes and added many other things in the production of my work.
Which of these works brought more challenges?
It is a very difficult question to answer, because all my works brought me something. And then how do you measure the challenge? One in which we live is what seems most important. Then, with hindsight, we relativize.
And which one you remember with affection?
Is the one that you just did, right? Maybe right now I'm linked more with Lourdes. But when I review my films, I review are the experiences that I lived, they are a bit like seen my children.
It's easy to make documentaries in Portugal?
It is not easy. It's easy if we view the documentary as a television report. It is a couple of interviews, gather up some pictures in four days and it is a movie. That to me is not cinema. Making the documentary is how to make a feature-length fiction, as a dive, a dip, it's a very big and it's harder than fiction and what people think, because they put the documentary in a lower hierarchical level. I think there is more openness to the documentary, but it remains to be seen in Portugal as a lower form of art, even than fiction, which is ridiculous because a documentary is fiction and vice versa. The separation between them is not always obvious, nor makes sense. RTP 2 likes to say that is the television of documentaries and yet we see very little documentary, what you see is to put a couple of interviews with voice off and images ...
But I saw all the documentaries you done in this channel
Yes, but these documentaries are not supported by RTP, are supported by ICA and the Institute of Cinema. What I am saying is that television should participate more in documentary filmmaking. In drama, the investment is much more expensive because it involves actors and a larger team. But the documentary to work to create this close relationship, to create this relationship with this person needs time to be filmed. Pedro Costa, for example, needs a year to film. They have a small production, but it involves a lot of time. Television has an important role in this matter, I think is essential. It is not obvious when passing the films. You see more foreign documentaries.
And the festivals play their role?
They have an important role, because they create an event around the film and people go. And there's a curiosity to meet people and see new things.
