A metamorfose dos pássaros

Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Leben ihrer vom Meer getrennten Großeltern und ihres nach einer Hyazinthe benannten Vaters tunkt Catarina Vasconcelos in ihrem Debütfilm in 16mm-Saudade und die erinnerungsglorifizierenden Farben einer polyfonen Tagebuchelegie. Die erlesenen Bilder und das persönliche Voiceover sind einem magischen Realismus verschrieben, aber die Filmemacherin kommentiert gleichermaßen die jüngere, von den Spuren des Kolonialismus durchzogene Geschichte Portugals. 
(Patrick Holzapfel) 

In Anwesenheit von Catarina Vasconcelos.

The center of Catarina Vasconcelos' award-winning first feature, which premiered in Berlin last February, is Beatriz, the grandmother she never met, a matriarch evoked by the power of memory and the anchor for a clan of six children, since her husband, a naval officer, spent most of his adult life at sea. And yet this family portrait that confronts grief past and present knows how to bury secrets and hide confessions with an inventive, natural grace that is far from the standard canon of the autobiographical film. The exciting questions begin right here: How to give a body to an "absent protagonist" who carries the story of at least three generations within her? How to construct a family saga that doesn’t want to flip through the different pages of said story like someone reading a diary? 
There is certainly more than one possible exit to
A METAMORFOSE DOS PÁSSAROS. It’s a true story that is not satisfied with the facts, chronology, and rhythm of reality – in a relentless test of the word "documentary". It's also an epistolary film based on letters that are more imagined or even dreamed up than written, delivered by a voiceover ceaselessly reacting to images and sounds. Its purpose? To transform everyday life into a chimera. Like the boy who once dreamed of turning into a bird. (Francisco Ferreira) 

In the presence of Catarina Vasconcelos.

Catarina Vasconcelos: METÁFORA OU A TRISTEZA VIRADA DO AVESSO (2014, K)