Goans must stop coming to Portugal: Vicente Alves Do OPortuguese filmmaker
Vicente Alves Do O is in Goa for the screening of his film Florbela at the 43rd
International film festival of India (Iffi), but he has also brought with him
an unexpected guest - worry that his country could be moving towards
intellectual bankruptcy with 100% cut in finances to filmmakers in a nation
where cinema is fully state funded.The filmmaker said that Goans should stop
coming to Portugal as they have no future in the country. "Please don't come to
Portugal. Goans should not come there. People are moving out of Portugal and
Europe because it is dying. Europe will be finished in 10 years," Vincente
said.The director said that Europe is being rigid in its thinking and this
reflects in the films it churns out. "European filmmakers are depressed. They
all make the same kind of films. Europe is still thinking of itself as this
power who had once ruled the world. We are not that anymore. Portugal is a poor
country. We need to reboot ourselves like a computer now to survive in these
competitive times or Europe will die. We need to reinvent," Vicente said."It is
a cultural tragedy that the Portuguese government has cut funds 100% for films
this year and not a single film has been made in Portugal in 2012 because of
the European crisis. As it is, we make only 12 films a year, which is the
number India makes in a day. Our government is so rightwing they are cousins of
(Mitt) Romney," Vicente said.He said that there are already restrictions on
subjects of films as they are government funded. "There are people who have
robbed banks and are infamous but you never see films being made on them. You
will never see Portuguese films about politics. This is because there are
restrictions on filmmaking in a sublime way as you get your funds from the
government and the law does not permit private funding for films," the
outspoken filmmaker said.He said that the elderly in Portugal have already
given up. "We only see teenagers in the cinema halls in Lisbon. The older
generation has given up. And the teenagers only want to watch American films
and not Portuguese ones," Vicente said, whose film Florbela speaks of the
unconventional life of an influential 20th century female poet. The filmmaker
believes the way Florbela lived her life breaking away from convention has a
lesson in store for Europeans today."We don't trust our class of politicians
and we don't see a way out into the future at present. But artists have that
responsibility to show that way forward. You cannot make films who no one
understands and absolve yourself of that responsibility," Vicente said. [TOI]
