Strangers in the Archive

A collective film assembled by Filipa César.

In 2011, an archive of film and audio material re-emerged in Bissau. On the verge of complete ruination, the footage testifies to the birth of Guinean cinema as part of the decolonising vision of Amílcar Cabral, the liberation leader assassinated in 1973. In collaboration with the Guinean filmmakers Sana na N’Hada and Flora Gomes, and many allies, Filipa César imagines a journey where the fragile matter from the past operates as a visionary prism of shrapnel to look through. Digitised in Berlin, screened and live commented, the archive convokes debates, storytelling, and forecasts. From isolated villages in Guinea-Bissau to European capitals, the silent reels are now the place from where people search for antidotes for a world in crisis.

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Presented in partnership with Goethe-Institut Glasgow.

The death of Alejandro “Ale” Robles, killed by police after being betrayed by a friend, provides the throughline for this nuanced, fragmentary portrait of the Don Orione estate in Buenos Aires. In a small apartment his mother, Ana, bakes a cake and recalls her son whilst home video footage captures the family in happier times.

Through the deft assembly of different types and sources of footage, Bonino weaves together disparate elements of neighbourhood life to construct a multi-layered work that coalesces to form an aching and disquieting portrait of a society spilling over with contradictions and irreconcilable truths.

Augustina Comedi weaves together a complex and moving portrait of her late father Jaime, constructed from more than 100 hours of videotape he recorded as a hobby prior to his untimely death. It seemed as though he recorded everything, although he left only small clues as to the man he was before marrying her mother and the secrets he kept with him.

Interviews with those who knew him reveal fragments of a youth filled with political activism, joyful friendships, and sexuality that never fully bloomed in the repressive social climate of 1980’s Argentina. With equal marriage being introduced in the country in 2010, Comedi’s film is at once a love letter to her father, and also profound thank you to those who sacrificed so much for the freedoms of the next generation.

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Presented in partnership with Scottish Queer International Film Festival.

A short film programme considering the ethics of the gaze, whether that of the tourist, the filmmaker or the audience. In Dennis Stormer’s Looking at Others an American tour guide brings western tourists to visit and ‘experience’ a Roma community, but who benefits from this exchange? And does the filmmaker – and by extension the viewer – stand apart from the camera-wielding tourists he captures? Glasgow-based artist Duncan Campbell’s fictional The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy draws on archive footage and anthropological research into rural Ireland in the 1960s and 70s to explicitly address the responsibility and impact of the documentary filmmaker. Finally, Patrick Bresnan and Ivete Lucas train their camera on ordinary Floridians compelled to photograph a rare sight at Palm Beach International Airport in Roadside Attraction.

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Curated by and presented in partnership with Glasgow Short Film Festival.

Susana de Sousa Dias’ Luz Obscura is a beautifully crafted, deeply felt essay-film looking at the legacy of the Portuguese Estado Novo, or New State, led by António Oliveira de Salazar – the longest-lasting right-wing dictatorship in 20th century Europe.

Taking as its starting point photographs taken by the Portuguese political police (1926-1974), the film focuses on the treatment of political opponents to the regime, especially the Portuguese Communist Party. The central story is that of Octávio Pato who was imprisoned and tortured before spending 14 years in hiding, whilst the contemporary recollections of his three children form the soundtrack to this hidden history.

Luz Obscura reflects on how the authoritarian system operated to disrupt intimate family bonds, and how decades of trauma and repression still mould the present.

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We’re delighted to be joined at the festival by Director Susana de Sousa Dias for a post-screening Q&A, hosted by Tatiana Heise.