Mentiras sãs: sobre dois filmes de apropriação 'falsos'

Tiago Baptista

doi:10.21471/jls.v2i1.153

Tiago Baptista Instituto de História Contemporânea Universidade Nova de Lisboa

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21471/jls.v2i1.153

Keywords: Appropriation film, Portuguese cinema, fake documentary, Miguel Gomes, Manuel Mozos

Abstract

A glória de fazer cinema em Portugal (Manuel Mozos, 2015) and Redemption (Miguel Gomes, 2013) are recent examples of "appropriation films," a filmmaking practice that has seen important development in Portugal over the past fifteen years. The two films stand out, however, because they use fabricated archival footage (Mozos) and real archival footage (Gomes) to tell a fictional story. This places them within the scope of the "fake documentary" genre. If one accepts current scholarly definitions of appropriation films, it is possible to see these two "fake" films as apt illustrations of the epistemological and pedagogical potential of the appropriation film with respect not only to cinema but also to historical knowledge.

Author Biography

Tiago Baptista, Instituto de História Contemporânea Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Tiago Baptista is director of the Arquivo Nacional das Imagens em Movimento, the Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema's center for conservation. He holds a PhD in Film and Screen Media from the University of London (Birkbeck College), teaches teaches cinema at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, and is an associated researcher at the Instituto de História Contemporânea at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Cultura at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. He is a founding member of the Associação de Investigadores da Imagem em Movimento (AIM) and the managing editor of Aniki: Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento.