Programme 2022

Rita Barbosa

Imaginary Friends

Programma soort: Main programme
Genre: Film performance
Herkomst: Porto, Portugal

By laying bare the mechanics of filmmaking, Portuguese film-maker and visual artist Rita Barbosa plays a cat and mouse game with our perceptions and inner emotions.

Entrance

€ 12,-

Duration

64 minutes

Language

Language no problem

Location

Simplon

Accessibility

Check times

Delightful real-time deconstruction of film as reality

Have you ever wondered how film sound effects are created? Surprisingly, the Portuguese film director and artist Rita Barbosa is slyly aiming to disappoint you in this regard in this film performance, actually preventing you – not even for a single moment – to get drawn into the film’s magic. On the contrary, over and over again, she brilliantly tries to expose cinema’s magic bag of sound tricks.

On stage, a director and three non-professional foley-artists are creating movie sound effects in real time, while beautiful film images feature in the background. Foley is applied in the film world in order to add the sound effects which aren’t registered during shooting, such as footsteps, closing doors or thunder. Though normally the idea is to add more realism to the scenes, Barbosa intentionally aims to shatter this illusion, exposing cinema’s impressive mechanisms of deception and playing with its endless possibilities. She magnificently manages to let us break free from the perspective automatism of going along with a film’s reality, so beware: your evenings at the movies will never be the same again.

With follow-up discussion on the 20th of August at 4 p.m.

As it grows, Imaginary Friends reaches the apotheosis of cinema in its purest state: made of moving image and sound.

Author: Daniel Ribas

Sunday 21 August

Available times

16:30

Monday 22 August

Available times

18:00 21:00

Tuesday 23 August

Available times

19:30

Wednesday 24 August

Available times

18:00 21:00

Thursday 25 August

Available times

19:30

About the artist

Rita Barbosa is a film director and visual artist. Her artistic practice is developed mainly in filmed images. She works in collaborative processes in the creation, writing and visual conception of projects in the areas of theatre, cinema, dance and performance. In her work she deconstructs operative processes of making, thinking of art as an aesthetic game, as a procedural and methodological form. In her work one senses a deliberate provocation of logical thinking and a declared will to think about chance, absurdity, humour and politics. Filming the real world and fictionalising it with sound, or using sound to forge meanings - these are notions she keeps exploring in her projects. Her recent project "Imaginary Friends" (the play) is on tour and has been presented in many national theatres such as Rivoli Theatre and CCB. Her first short film "Friends After Dark" premiered in Locarno.

Credits
Direction, text, editing and artistic coordination | Rita Barbosa
Sound Design | Rui Lima and Sérgio Martins, with Jonathan Saldanha
Performance | Rui Lima, Sérgio Martins, Daniel Pizamiglio
Production | Maria Inês Marques
Sound Engineer | Manuel Reis
Lighting design | Mário Bessa
Light and video technician | Francisco Alves
Poster and Graphic Design | Dayana Lucas, Pedro Nora
DOP | Jorge Quintela
Color | Nuno Garcia – Spectacular Studio
Powered by | Câmara Municipal do Porto/Criatório, SPA and AGECOP
With the support of | Take It Easy, Planar, Teatro do Bolhão, Circolando, Mala Voadora,Spectacular Studio
Co-production site | O Espaco do Tempo