As estações

Nach den beiden Kollaborationen mit ihrem Partner Miguel Gomes (DIÁRIOS DE OTSOGSA, V’21, und GRAND TOUR, V’24) erkundet Fazendeiro die portugiesische Region Alentejo. Über Jahre unternahm die Regisseurin dokumentarische Ausflüge, fand bei Einheimischen gegenwärtige, aber auch sagenhaft ferne Erzählungen, die sie zum Ausgangspunkt fiktionaler Szenen macht. Ihr Zeithorizont ist weit genug, um sich auf den Nachlass der deutschen Prähistoriker Georg und Vera Leisner zu beziehen, die ab 1943 hier 10.000 Jahre alte Megalithgräber beforschten – und Ex-Militär Georg Leisner seine Beteiligung am Genozid an den Herero 1904/05 verdrängte. (Robert Weixlbaumer)

In Anwesenheit von Maureen Fazendeiro.

For her first feature as a solo director—following DIÁRIOS DE OTSOGA (2021), co-directed with her partner Miguel Gomes— French filmmaker Maureen Fazendeiro was inspired by archeologist couple Georg and Vera Leisner’s efforts to catalogue the Alentejo region of Portugal. Part documentary, part fable, AS ESTAÇÕES unfolds like a weatherworn letter, employing a motley set of techniques to embody the region’s varied textures and characters. Fazendeiro lovingly traces the region’s histories through archival footage, scientific illustrations, poetry, tableaux vivants and pure fabrication inspired by local legend. The result is a non-hierarchical imagining of southern Portugal, with coruscating images shot on 16mm by Robin Fresson and Marta Simões. AS ESTAÇÕES pans across pastoral landscapes, grazing debarked trees, herds of goats, rotting fruit, and a family performing Communist folk songs. As with Fazendeiro’s previous projects (including this year’s LES HABITANTS, also screening at the festival), ethnography and conscientious mythmaking go arm in arm, or branch in branch. (Saffron Maeve)

Maureen Fazendeiro: MOTU MAEVA (2014), SOL NEGRO (2019, K), DIÁRIOS DE OTSOGA (2021, KO-REGIE), LES HABITANTS (2025)