After you have seen and reviewed your documentary in various festivals and lived this personal experience in a psychiatric hospital, which is a personal reflection of that reality that you do?
JP: I've been in a psychiatric hospital not as a normal citizen, but in a very professional perspective, as a director. Sometimes it's difficult to explain this, in fact, I feel that one thing is to be there with a camera and the other thing is we are only looking at that reality. In a way the camera filter in that environment which is aggressive and heavy, is a psychiatric institution, of course, being with a camera protects us. In a corridor where I see people who are hospitalized I'm watching that reality, but I'm more concerned about the environment thru the lens, with the exposure, with the sound and these concerns defend me from the weight that is to be in there . That experience did not bring me suffering, on the contrary, I ended up feeling very well because those who see the film soon realizes that in these institution there is not only crazy screaming, there are people who are human beings like all of us, only they have a pathology that makes them different, or special. This is also one of the objectives of this documentary, show a prejudiced society looking at these people as totally invalid, that's why they are closed there and that this is a concept that today is unfounded. I usually say "stop suddenly my thought" does not reflect the reality of a mental hospital at all, but touches on some truths about what it is that world, their daily life and more importantly makes an update of what is life in a psychiatric institution, so that people out here have a different notion and be less judgmental of the life within within that hospital.
The title is a reference to a poem of Angelo Lima, which arises as a consequence of the actor, the play? Or you had already planned it all before filming?
JP: We had some certainties before we get there, the first was to take all the prejudices of our head, in this case of mine and I would not go in with preconceived ideas why? Because I had this prejudice, my parents told me when I was little that if misbehave I will go to the hospital of the crazy. I would not go in with that attitude in "Conde Ferreira" then, we've enter in this hospital with an untitled film, without any approach, the oly thing I wanted to do was go in and respect this institution and its users. Everything else I was waiting for the reality been brought to me, in a way the characters, the narrative structure of the film and later the film perspective. The poem arises because the drama teacher brought the character, he indicated Angelo Lima to the actor Miguel Borges and he had to do the reading of the poem. The reality brought us the title, it all results from that experience that we had. One of the things I really did not want to say was the title of the film, so it was more natural and true, was one of the things that in fact could do and went according to what we thought.
Going back a little behind and returning to the "there are still shepherds" now that a few years have passed, how do you view this film?
JP: For me it's always difficult to look at the films I've done.
Because you always have the feeling you could improve them, or change them in any way?
JP: Of course, with what I know today and looking back would do everything completely different, but it also marks a time, a stage in my professional life, a period of my approach to the documentary, so I would never think of changing it. When I present "there are still shepherds" I no longer see it, the professional stage is completely different, but then, thankfully so, because it marked a stage of my career. I'm always looking forward, never looking back, because there's a time when I know exactly what I want to do in the next film and so on. The documentaries are made, is a cycle that closes and I have to think about the next, I do not look at the films that have passed away. However, I will tell you a little story, about two years ago, I was invited to a festival in Porto Alegre, Brazil, with the "there are still shepherds" and I no longer saw the movie for six years ago and I decided to just see it first to majke sure if everything was alright, I always do it with the documentaries, I see the first five minutes, but this time I got to see it to the end and I felt good and it made me extremely happy, but as a general rule I do not see the documentary, because I've seen it so many times. When we see an image for the first time there is the excitement that does not extend to all that intensity in time, I will not say that it becomes banal, let's just say that strong feeling is gone and it also happens to our own the films. I now am doing a small editing and when I see for first time an image I'm excited, from the fifth and sixth time is just gone this feeling, this pleasure.
Then you will continue in this professional line of documentaries?
JP: I'll continue to tell stories. In the film there are two ways to do it, one is to use an experience of reality, through the documentary, another is through fiction, it can be up with animation, for example. Now, what is the device I use? Whether it is fiction or documentary? For now I want to enjoy all that remains of the foam of days, trying to catch pieces of this reality and make it into a cinematic subject. Lately has been documentary but fiction will come when I feel I need this format to tell a story.
But right now these editing your next project?
JP: No, this time got funding from the Film Institute to my next project that we shoot in 2016. Until then we are making short author documentaries.
And you'll tell again the story of people for whom we passed and do not see? Or do not wish to see?
JP: Yes, I'll probably tell the story of people that others do not see, are more "fringe” characters of this society and I'm trying to understand, why they are looked that way. It is a more personal film in the direction of the character itself, but it is not an institution,
The format will be documentary or fiction?
JP: Documentary, yes.
