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João Salaviza

Strokkur

Documentaire | 0 | noir et blanc | 7:16 | Portugal | 2011

In the beginning the idea was to make something from nothing, in a neutral and unknown place. Collect images and sounds instead of producing them. The camera, the microphone and the mini-amplifier: tools that take away and then give back. We defined a rule: the sound shouldn?t illustrate the image and the image shouldn?t absorb the sound. Less than a hundred kilometres from Reykjavik we found Strokkur. A scar on the Earth that insists in not healing, gushing from the depths. We came closer. For three days we saw and heard the internal dynamics of the crevice: the boiling water that spat out every seven minutes and the thermal shock, given the eighteen degrees below zero of the atmosphere. The film was already there, the music too. Underneath the blizzard, the soaked amplifier was out of tune and produced strange noises. The camera was almost blown away with the wind gusts. Batteries did not resist the cold and died every fifteen minutes. We ran for shelter carrying the gear on our backs. Reload. Reheat. Start all over again. ?Strokkur? is above all a document. A log of an observation-dialogue, of what was left.

JOÃO SALAVIZA Born in Lisbon in 1984. He studied cinema at Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema in Lisbon and completed his studies at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. His first short film, ?TWO PEOPLE?, 2005, was selected for several festivals and won the Take One Award in Vila do Conde. In 2009, with ?ARENA?, he won the Palme d?Or for best short film at the Cannes Film Festival and the award for best Portuguese short film at IndieLisboa. He then participated in several renowned international festivals such as Tribeca, Rotterdam, London and Pusan (PIFF). In 2010, he finished ?HOTEL MüLLER? (based on the work of Pina Bausch) and ?CASA NA COMPORTA? for the Portuguese entry in the 12th International exhibition of Architecture ? Venice Biennale. He is currently working in the short ?CERRO NEGRO? for the programme Próximo Futuro from Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. In the summer of 2011, Salaviza will shoot the short ?RAFA? to be followed by the pre production of his first feature film.