Anticline, 2020
HD video, 21:9, black and white, AAC, 13’13”, Portugal
Dimensions Variable
3 + 1 AP
In the anticline of Estremoz-Borba-Vila Viçosa in Alentejo, is located one of the oldest and most productive marble extraction industries in Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula that has deeply marked this region.
The movie approaches the problematic of the transformation of the environment into commodities, from a point of view that intends to be that of the stone itself, in which we can find the huge quarries, some more than a hundred meters deep, thus exposing these monumental scars. The testimony falters between the stone, the machines and the landscape, where humanity seemingly ceased to exist.
The narrative documents fragments of this exploration, where we find habitats dominated by cranes and disfigured by heavy machinery, functioning almost as an industrial archeology, in which we are placed as witnesses at the center of a scar that extends for over 40 kilometres and whose epicentre is a tragic landslide of a 100-meter stretch of road, in November 2018, which claimed a number of fatal victims. Observing the ecology of the different players, Anticline brings to the surface traces and artefacts composed of micro-narratives that document and witness the profound and continuous subjugation of the landscape.
︎ Project Mini-Website
HD video, 21:9, black and white, AAC, 13’13”, Portugal
Dimensions Variable
3 + 1 AP
Plucked from the ground, we flew over the landscape. In the blink of an eye everything has changed. A hundred-meter chasm extends below us. We suddenly fall into a vortex. The machines, which appear to us as prehistoric creatures, have taken control.
We are transported, pulled, cut and deposited by rusty shovels choreographed by hydraulic rods, under the vibration of the engines that impose the rhythm and accelerate time.
In the anticline of Estremoz-Borba-Vila Viçosa in Alentejo, is located one of the oldest and most productive marble extraction industries in Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula that has deeply marked this region.
The movie approaches the problematic of the transformation of the environment into commodities, from a point of view that intends to be that of the stone itself, in which we can find the huge quarries, some more than a hundred meters deep, thus exposing these monumental scars. The testimony falters between the stone, the machines and the landscape, where humanity seemingly ceased to exist.
The narrative documents fragments of this exploration, where we find habitats dominated by cranes and disfigured by heavy machinery, functioning almost as an industrial archeology, in which we are placed as witnesses at the center of a scar that extends for over 40 kilometres and whose epicentre is a tragic landslide of a 100-meter stretch of road, in November 2018, which claimed a number of fatal victims. Observing the ecology of the different players, Anticline brings to the surface traces and artefacts composed of micro-narratives that document and witness the profound and continuous subjugation of the landscape.
︎ Project Mini-Website
Credits
Director & Cinematography João Bragança Gil
Original Soundtrack João Poppe Toulson
Mastering Donato Panaccio
Additional Camera Anat Uziely
Additional Images TVI24, RTP1, SIC, Marinha Portuguesa
Sound Courtesy FreeSound.org
Location Estremoz, Borba e Vila Viçosa — Alentejo, Portugal
Original Soundtrack João Poppe Toulson
Mastering Donato Panaccio
Additional Camera Anat Uziely
Additional Images TVI24, RTP1, SIC, Marinha Portuguesa
Sound Courtesy FreeSound.org
Location Estremoz, Borba e Vila Viçosa — Alentejo, Portugal