(nostalgia) & Obscure Light

Programme

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  (nostalgia)

  Hollis Frampton reminisces about twelve photographs, which one by one catch fire. The voice-over and images are out of sync: each story belongs to the photograph that follows, not to the one you are seeing, causing a dual experience of time.
  
  Before Hollis Frampton became known as a filmmaker of the New American Cinema, he was mainly involved with photography. In (nostalgia), he presents 11 of his photos, taken between 1958 and 1966, plus one by an unknown photographer. The photos depict friends in the New York art world, mouldy spaghetti, two toilets imitating a crucifixion. He reminisces about all 12 of them. After about a minute, when the narration stops, the photos catch fire one by one and burn to ashes. By filming the charred remains, Frampton in a sense recreates them.
  
  The voice-over and images are out of sync: each story belongs to the photo that follows, not to the one we are looking at. As a viewer, you navigate between the photo you expect to see and the story accompanying the previous one. Frampton’s black-and-white film, part of a larger work titled Hapax Legomena, is a dual experience of time in which memory and anticipation merge.

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  Obscure Light

  Three children speak about the traumatic impact of the persecution of their parents, labeled enemies of the state by Portugal's 20th-century dictatorship. A restrained but powerful reconstruction of childhoods scarred by an inhuman regime. Drie kinderen vertellen over de traumatische gevolgen van de vervolging van hun ouders; staatsvijanden tijdens de Portugese dictatuur in de vorige eeuw. Een sobere en intense reconstructie van een jeugd die getekend is door een onmenselijk regime.
  
  What does it mean to be the child of enemies of the state in a country of intense political oppression? Filmmaker Susana de Sousa Dias poses this question to three children of former Communist leader Octávio Pato. All three were born in Portugal during Europe's longest-lasting dictatorship of the 20th century (1926-1974).
  
  They were still very young when their parents were taken from a hiding place by the notorious Portuguese secret police (PIDE) to be imprisoned and tortured. Even as adults, Isabel, Álvaro, and Rui still become deeply emotional as they speak about their memories of childhood and of parents they barely recognised upon their return.
  
  We hear their harrowing stories, as images emerge from the darkness like ghosts: mugshots of their parents, covert surveillance footage made by the Portuguese police, and shots of what remains of their grandparents' farm. Image and audio combine to form a striking testimony to the lasting harm a dictatorship can inflict.