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GABRIEL ABRANTES Gabriel Abrantes & Benjamin Crotty, Liberdade, Portugal-Angola, 2011, 16 min Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt, Pal\u00e1cios de Pena (Palaces of Pity), Portugal, 2011, 56 min Gabriel Abrantes & Katie Widloski, Olympia I & II, Portugal-USA, 2008, 7 min Also Screening: Tuesday 25 October 2011, at 1:15pm, NFT2<\/em><\/p>\nPROGRAMME NOTES<\/a> GABRIEL ABRANTES LIBERDADE PAL\u00c1CIOS DE PENA (PALACES OF PITY) OLYMPIA I & II
\nSaturday 22 October 2011, at 7pm
\nLondon BFI Southbank NFT3<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Liberdade<\/em> sketches episodes in the relationship between a domineering Chinese immigrant and her Angolan boyfriend with lavishly cinematic panache. Travelling through spectacular locations in and around Luanda, they navigate the complications of their burgeoning identities and the different cultures they represent.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Gabriel Abrantes and his collaborators use the tropes of mainstream cinema to make works that are by turns comical, thought-provoking and transgressive. In a parable on guilt and oppression, which alludes to aspects of Portuguese colonial history, two cousins are potential heirs to their grandmother\u2019s fortune. A new generation may be oblivious to the past, but inherits it nonetheless.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Mimicking the composition of Manet\u2019s notorious painting, the artists play out two possible scenarios: between a prostitute and her gay brother, and between a wealthy transsexual and his devoted maid.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Saturday 22 October 2011, at 7pm
\nLondon BFI Southbank NFT3<\/p>\n
\nGabriel Abrantes & Benjamin Crotty, Portugal-Angola, 2011, video, colour, sound, 16 min<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>Shot in Luanda and the surrounding area, with non-professional actors, Liberdade<\/em> is a cross-cultural post-capitalist love story. The film follows two young lovers \u2013 an Angolan boy, Liberdade, and his Chinese girlfriend, Betty \u2013 as they navigate through the complications of their burgeoning identities. Traveling across the stunning urban and natural landscapes of Angola, from the Chinese karaoke at Shanghai Bahia to the ship graveyard at Santiago beach, Liberdade and Betty struggle to forge the yet uncreated consciousness of their race. (Gabriel Abrantes)<\/p>\n
\nGabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt, Portugal, 2011, video, colour, sound, 56 min
\n<\/strong>Pal\u00e1cios de pena <\/em>is about a culturally inherited fear in Portugal, linked to political and social oppression during the Inquisition and Fascism. It revolves around two upper-middle class adolescent Portuguese girls, juxtaposing their budding identities to a trial condemning two Moorish homosexuals to burn at the stake. Their ailing grandmother gives them an awareness of their heritage through the mechanism of desire, describing a dream where she is a judge of the Inquisition. The grandmother\u2019s and the girls\u2019 guilt is complicated by their relationship, that of family and love. As they love each other, so does what they represent: ignorance and the will to violently oppress. (Gabriel Abrantes)<\/p>\n
\nGabriel Abrantes & Katie Widloski, Portugal-USA, 2008, video, colour, sound, 7 min
\n<\/strong>1. A female professional sex worker is visited by her homosexual adolescent brother and his two dogs. He confronts her about her line of work after having played trivial pursuit with mother on the sun deck. He wouldn\u2019t pay a dime for her disgusting breasts.
\n2. A transvestite professional sex worker from a middle class Texan family waits for customers while listening to Henry Gorecki and drinking mini Diet Coca-Cola. His maid, the \u2018chocolate covered strawberry\u2019, comforts him by rubbing his \u2018soft batch\u2019 and they begin making love. (Gabriel Abrantes)<\/p>\n