Salomé Lamas is a Portuguese filmmaker who explores the limits of the documentary, which she calls of parafiction, which covers a part of the real, from a creative point of view and where there is room for the imagination.
You wrote the documentary as a form of cinematic expression, why?
Salomé Lamas: Nowadays the question documentary / fiction is interesting in the academic level, there are films that are more permeable to both formats are called hybrid, which is not position or on one side, or another. Maybe the work I do in the non-fiction cinema, is not the most conventional type of work. Now there are films that focus on the real and it is from this and how we translate to the viewer that interests me.
I find it curious that you underline this point, because I think you do something different in terms of narrative and how you film plans, "terra de ninguém" 2013 is a good example, which seals the life of an individual, that's what you consider hybrid, because it is out of the ordinary even in the case of real cinema?
SL: No, sometimes it has to do with the inclusion of fictional elements that it will "drink" from the real, deep permeability formats. I'm interested in, for example, the issues that revolve around the own limit of the documentary. These limits are interesting for questioning, so if we're talking about a word I have some affection that is the parafiction, has to do with creating documentaries grounded on reality and the viewer believe and there is an inherent authority to the film because it is based on facts, it is almost a story, but then there is an almost literary component where imagination has its place.
So which of your works do more shows this dimension of parafiction?
SL: The approach is always the same, I circumscribe to reality, either for a period of time or geographically. Then how can I deal with this reality and present it? This translation process is also always creative. Today, the objective, or real can be interchangeable, or there is a reality mirror effect and an end product that almost no one believes that there may be, at heart we live in a world of make believe and has to do with these issues.
Some say you are part of the Portuguese alternative cinema, do your see yourself in that category?
SL: I do not know (laughs) the categories are from other's to place me. I do not label my self. In the background the cinema that I do have a family from other filmmakers out there and even the Portuguese panorama.
Why do not you find a niche here? That's is why you have to leave the country?
SL: The film I do is the festivals circuit, which seeks an active spectator, sometimes has the permeability to be presented in the museum space. It's a work that has a limited distribution, so no TV format, not so much in movie theaters. Honestly the film distribution channels that I do are limited, has to do with many factors not only with the work I do, has to do with the market in terms of Portugal, with the lack of movie theaters in our country and with the Portuguese public.
So who is the audience of your movies? The ones that go to museums?
SL: I have no idea. (laughs) I think it is diverse, with all types of people. I showed films for ladies 60 years, it is a very broad esprecto.
And what they say about your work?
SL: They say that documentaries are viable. I do not separate the public niches, this is a very abstract question, knowing who I work for. My films are to be seen, that's what I shoot them, I do not do it for targeted audience, although there is much that issue today, for me there is only the public.
You have a ongoing project now?
SL: I have several ongoing projects, I am in the middle of a feature film that was filmed in Peru, called "el dorado" with the production "the sound of fury", I'm shooting a film called "extinction in transnistia" which is a pro-Russian territory in Moldova and will be filmed also in Romania, Bulgaria, Germany and Portugal, it is a film that ends up question or comment in an abstract way the border issue in Eastern Europe, deep down what happened after the fall of the former USSR, it is a film that I hope would be ready already this year. I have a fiction short film to run next summer and then have smaller projects, one of them divided between Portugal, Beirut and Dubai. I am also preparing an exhibition of visual arts in Lisbon will present unpublished projects in early June this year.
"El Dorado" is about what?
SL: It's past in the highest city in the world, five thousand meters of altitude and is a film that turns out to portray a community of individuals working alone in that place, because there are a number of gold mines where they work for thirty days without fixed pay and then on the 31 can go to find mine and what they find it's theirs, it is a lottery process. It is also about how all the mining town entails a number of issues intrinsic to the site.
That is why documentaries your themes are always people or groups of people who are out of society?
SL: They are marginal situations.
It is purposeful or not?
SL: It is because is about the voiceless. Realities sometimes unknown and once again has to do with the idea of limit, to seek to exploit this issue either geographically, or almost physical. In the background are remote locations, there is a lack of control, are almost violent and hostile and has to do with how I position myself before these realities. There is a friction, a confrontation in move me to these territories, I am a foreign body in these realities, there is this clash that I hope to occupy the place and then comes the opportunity to make a documentary, it has to do with my movie making process .
How they look to you? You have a frail figure and you're a woman, it does not weigh?
SL: Sometimes turns out to be an advantage, it is difficult to say. I have this fragile and tiny figure.
Yes and you are foreign.
SL: Right. It's about the process of waiting, I try to "earn" their trust, but the other hand, will always be foreign.
Do you make a preparation before filming?
SL: No, because I assume that making documentaries is not a "pretty" act. It is a job that entails a number ethical and moral issues, where there is also a power relationship on the object that is being filmed. Now, there are formulas to find a balance, but ultimately it is always the director who controls the final product, because we are making private matters in public and this act is not done lightly, because it entails a responsibility. Linked to this issue is also my introducing, it is much more honest. The film is a transaction in which one who is being filmed give something, I get something in retourn, but also give something back and that one also gets something. It is a pact that has to be very clear from the beginning, I will not create a connection with a person, it is not fake, but for me the distance is essential if we became friends and we built a relationship, it is after. I'm doing a movie and this entails a number of issues, it is the cleaner way to do this, but most of all I am interested in this first meeting.
