EDGAR PÊRA: RETROSPECTIVE - 17 NOV

War or Peace? | 17 min.Interweaving archive material and unpublished interviews with maimed veterans from the Portuguese Colonial War, and an exercise of sarcastic correspondence between twentieth century dictators and Marvel superheroes, War or Peace? is a film-installation that traces an ironic bisecting between fact and fiction – one of Edgar Pêra’s favourite transversal themes - approaching, on the basis of this opposition, different spaces and times, from the point of view of an alien observer, whose mission consists of deciding (distinguishing ...) between war and peace on Planet Earth.


Untitled (TRAÇA) | 11 min.Building on a sound- and image-based intersection between the past and present, Untitled (Traça) is based on editing together anonymous archive footage that depict the leisure activities and concerns of the middle class at the end of the Estado Novo regime. The film establishes a paradoxical dialogue with Pêra’s earlier work, April 25 - An Adventure for Democracy (2000), simultaneously functioning as a synthesis and outline of this film. Using material collected from amateur films and from the media, Untitled (Traça) probes the contradictions of the 1974 Carnation Revolution as if it were a study of the symptoms of naive images.


April 25, an Adventure for Democracy | 16 min.The short film, April 25 - An Adventure for Democracy, questions the level of popular support for the 1974 Revolution, based on a montage that refuses a linear sequential logic and makes it possible to achieve a sense of critical distance by contrasting archive images that represent some of the key moments from the history of twentieth century Portugal.


Our Faith | 20 min.Our Faith questions the world of football from the perspective of the players’ bench and the collective experience of the sporting epiphany, paying special attention to the visual and anthropological potential of the reactions of football fans-spectators. Moving the lens away from the pitch and towards the stands also resembles a journey towards religious iconography, in a film that tends towards abstraction and denial of reality. The relationship of the masses with the messianic, military and ritual spectacle of football, is portrayed in the film as an event which, like film itself, acts as a drug that is capable of suspending everyday life.



Impending Doom | 8 minAccompanied by the music of the Dead Combo and The Legendary Tigerman, Impending Doom is a sound and visual interpretation of two ceremonies of collective communion that convey beliefs, ideologies, temperaments and locations that are different, if not antagonistic - the funeral of the Pope versus the funeral of the Communist Alvaro Cunhal – shown through the images that reveal affinities and politically question the limits of supposed universal anthropological principles.


Wot’s Missing | 10 min.Inspired by the political meaning of the song by Zeca Afonso, U K Faz Falta, which is used as the title of this film, Wot’s Missing explores - in an affirmative and questioning manner - very different popular celebrations against the backdrop of a musical selection by Miguel Esteves Cardoso. Commissioned by SIC to mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1974 revolution, the film uses the music video format, based on different images - whether public archive footage, such as a police charge on demonstrators on Lisbon’s April 25 bridge, or images from personal archives, that reflect Portugal’s colonial past, crossed with carnival parades and shots of the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Bairro Alto district in Lisbon – in order to think about continuities and clashes between festivities, struggle and repression. Edgar Pêra has always enjoyed filming crowds. Here, the collective movement embodies the idea of democracy as a form of confrontation, recovering the desire to experience the political struggle as a festive event: the festival of democracy that, in this film, ironically commences with a suggestive allusion to the colours and graphic elements of the Confederate flag of the American South. WAR OR PEACE?, 1992 UNTITLED (TRAÇA), 2015 APRIL 25 - AN ADVENTURE FOR DEMOCRACY, 2000 OUR FAITH, 2004 IMPENDING DOOM, 2006 WOT'S MISSING, 1995
Original idea, director and editing: Edgar Pêra Director of Photography: João Pinto Music: Pedro Bidarra Production: Catarina Santos, Edgar Pêra  Production: Núcleo de Cineastas Independentes  Format: 35mm, colour, 17 min.

Original idea and editing: Edgar PêraCinematography: based on home movies and family films from the collection of the Lisbon Municipal Archive – Videoteca Sound: film 25 de Abril, uma aventura para a democracya (April 25, an adventure for democracy)Post-production: Cláudio VasquesCommission: TRAÇA – Exhibition of home movies and family films in the street Production: EGEAC and Lisbon Municipal Archive – Videoteca Format: video, colour, 11 min.

Original idea, editing and director: Edgar Pêra Assistant: Manuel RodriguesSoundtrack: Gué, Artur CyanettoProduction: Akademya Lusoh-Galaktika (edition for the 25 April Documentation Centre)Format: video, black and white/colour, 16 min.

Original idea, director and editing: Edgar Pêra Assistant: Manuel RodriguesImage reporters: João Pinto, Inês Henriques, Margarida Morins, Lígia Pereira, Rita Figueiredo, António Pinto, Pedro SilvaDirector of Photography: Edgar Pêra  Music: Vítor RuaSound: Rodrigo AreiasProducer: Paulo Branco  Production: Madragoa Filmes Format: video, colour, 20 min.

Original idea, Director of Photography and director: Edgar Pêra Music: Legendary Tigerman with Dead ComboEditing: Nádia HenriquesLine producer: João Pinto SousaProduction: Edgar Pêra (in the context of an artistic residency in the ZDB, 2004-2007)Format: video, colour, 8 min.

Camera, director and editing: Edgar PêraMusical selection: Miguel Esteves CardosoProduction: SICFormat: video, colour, 10 min.