About movie

A Room in the House

Original title PEDRA E CAL

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This is a film on rural houses in the interior of Algarve, in the South of Portugal. It shows the relationship between the present and the memories evoked in the intimacy of these houses. The past appears in all the testimonies of those with whom we spoke in a nostalgic and wistful way, as a time of harmony, but also as a time of misery. The traditional architecture in the film does not refer to the building techniques, but to the intangible heritage. Rather than knowledge, techniques, tools, ways of doing things and materials, we addressed architecture from the “social imaginary”. The film focuses on the way homes were and are experienced, and on their connections to farming, ritual and family.

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Author/s Catarina Alves Costa

Catarina Alves Costa is an Anthropologist and Filmmaker. MA in Visual Anthropology by the Granada Centre University of Manchester (U.K.). PhD in Lisbon University. Directed films since 1992, won various international prizes and published different works on documentary and ethnographic films. Some of her films are distributed by Documentary Educational Resourses, DER.

Filmography
Back to the Homeland | 35′, Hi8 | The Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, Manchester 1992
Best student film at the Gottingen International Ethnographic Film Festival. Germany, May 1994

Our lady Aparecida | 55′, Betacam | SP Filmes, 1994
Honorous Mention at Festival Internacional de Documentário, Loures, Portugal, November 1995
The First Prize at VII Rassegna Internazionale di Documentari Etnografici, em Nuoro, Italy, October 1996
The Award of Excelency from the Society for Visual Anthropology at the American Antropological Association Film Festival, San Francisco, November 1996
Prize European Massimo Troisi: best Film in Culture and Tradition from Portugal, November 2000

Swagatam (Welcome) | 55′, Betacam | SP Filmes, 1998
Planéte Award in the Bilan du Film Ethnographique, at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, March 1999

The Architect and the Old City | 60′, Betacam Digital | Laranja Azul e Jour J Productions, 2004.

Audience’s award in Caminhos Cinema Português, Coimbra Portugal April 2004
Infinity Festival (Alba, Italy), April 2005.
5th Ecocinema International Enviroment Film Festival (Athens, Greece)
10 th International Festival of Ethnographical Film, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil,2005.
Festival Internacional Documental de Barcelona, Spain, Oct 2006.

Route 206, DV Cam, 60’, Laranja Azul, 2008.
Award AVID Prize, Best Editing.

Research Maria Ribeiro Soares
Photography Olga Ramos
Sound Isabel Dias
Editing Pedro Duarte