LOVERS GOES INDUSTRY 2022
O POMAR
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ORIGINAL TITLE: O Pomar
ENGLISH TITLE: The Orchard DIRECTOR: Ana Manana and Joana Lourenço PRODUCTION COMPANY: Playground CO-PRODUCERS/CO PRODUCTIONS: COUNTRY: Portugal RUNNING TIME: 20' GENRE: Fiction STATUS OF THE PROJECET: Development Goals at Lovers Goes Industry: Funds and Festival Screening DIRECTOR’S FILMOGRAPHY Lisbon After Hours (2017) – short documentary Caravagyo (2020) – short documentary SYNOPSIS West, end of the summer. Laura works at the pear harvesting, a family business. During the afternoon, Carol arrives at the village to spend a few of her vacation days with her friends. That night, when Laura catches them stealing pears from one of her father’s orchards, she is confronted by her friend regarding her true intent. DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT Pear harvesting is an ambience that we know well and where we have spent some summers. Many young adults work in this activity to save some money, with different goals, whether it is to pay for their studies, a driver’s license or to help their family. It is hard work, it takes place almost from “sun to sun” (starting at 8am, often ending at 7 pm, with a lunch break), it is very physically demanding and quite masculine. The profile of the characters, the choice of the cast and the combination of the team was mainly based on our intuition, which is, at the same time, a political decision. It is important to mention the significant and balanced number of women in the team and in the cast. It serves us as the guiding principle of a policy for gender equality, of opportunities and the struggle for an inclusive and active space in Portuguese cinematographic production, which has still taken slow steps in these matters. For us, young filmmakers, it is also essential to achieve a balance between professionals with more experience and professionals at an early stage of their career, that is why we have assembled a team with different age groups and experiences, which seems valuable and challenging. The real environment - the region - of “O Pomar” takes advantage of these human relationships, which are reflected in the film’s narrative, and even in its own production. In addition to helping each other out, as already mentioned, the creation of a space where there is an openness for the input of various areas (which cinema allows) which enhance the dimension and perspectives of our film. “O Pomar” is the creative result of what we have been researching academically, professionally and artistically - both individually and in our collective path that we have established since 2017. We graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon, a fundamental step towards deepening our critical thinking and to underpin our visual culture, focusing on the image, the reflection of it’s content and what it can represent in cinema. Precisely because there is an intrinsic relationship between image and content, it can take on multiple meanings, as we propose in this first short fiction. After Fine Arts, we decided to base cinematographic criteria and references, and joined Kino-Doc, where we made the documentary “Caravagyo’’, a portrait of a pair of Portuguese-Brazilian DJs who introduced Brazilian funk music into Lisbon’s nightlife, creating an alternative and queerfriendly space that supported and promoted new projects from a young and politically active community. The documentary was filmed in spaces and contexts that may no longer exist in the city, which is currently going through a period of gentrification and a pandemic crisis. We immerse ourselves in more creative and DIY thinking. A punk attitude, in a somewhat political way, when facing the world in a detached way and without fear of the future. It also gave us the willingness to work with an intimate and diverse team, to reflect on (not exclusively) female voices, and above all young people, cultural agents who inspire us as role models to create and act politically. Today, we further our path in cinema and in Visual Anthropology, a field of studies that has asserted us as attentive filmmakers with an in-depth look at the reality surrounding us, on contemporary discourses and the way they have been reflected in cinematographic and documentary production. We have been working on the “city” theme, more specifically on Lisbon, but also on who it’s agents are and where they come from. It was through the experience of all this, and by bringing all these references to cinema, that we created “O Pomar”, a fiction project that aims to be a creative and political activation of what we defend and intend to explore. Our diversified look allows us to not only close ourselves to cinema’s references, using it’s tools to (re)build a reality, a motivation and our critical and creative perspective on what we look at today. We believe that “O Pomar” is, above all, the completion of the figuration of a place, the youth and the growth of a specific generation. The different crises that the film conveys through the characters and the interpersonal experiences are the fundamental ideas that we want to convey to the audience. It is through thisportrait that different generations will be able to interpret the moments in society in which youth, of this time and like many others, had to face different social expectations - whether economic, sexual or simply the idea of the near future, to become an adult and deal with the world and it’s constant changes. Cinema can be made of short and simple stories, and so we ventured to capture this representation of a generational feeling that tries to reach a wider audience and can be celebrated for its honesty and simplicity. DIRECTOR’S BIO Ana and Joana are both women directors in Portugal who have studied in Fine Arts School of Lisbon. Ana and Joana are studying Visual Anthropology in FCSH Nova in Lisbon and have been working in cinema production and editing. Their most recent school work is "Caravagyo", a documentary about a couple of two DJs who introduced Brazilian funk music to Lisbon's nightlife, promoting new projects, with a strong message of female empowerment - premiered at Queer Porto Film Festival, Regard Bleu and WOMEX '21. PRODUCTION COMPANY Playground is formed by people from different and complementary backgrounds, which brings an array of solutions to each project. We like to make it fun. We are focused on delivering the best, while making the best out of it. Playground represents renowned directors and photographers and also works as a creative hub. We produce work for advertising, film and television and we’re a service company for the international market. |