Video HD / color / stereo / 16:9 / 12 min / 2022
Before entering the sea a river trembles with fear.
In its journey to the sea, the Minho River ends up dividing
two peoples, without even intending to function as a border.
The reinforcement of the imaginary space that can be the
non-border, the indivisible natural environment.
Through the representation of the landscape of this border, we find ourselves in front of a unique territory where boundaries are blurred. The antithesis of identity and non-identity is invoked in Nós-Outros, suggesting that one depends on the other, so that by looking at the landscapes of Portugal we can understand Galicia and vice versa. The protagonist of the short film is the River Minho, which for the last 75 km acts as the border between the two countries, placing the representation of nature at the centre of attention, Nós-Outros is about occupying the space between two parts, the encounter between two forces.
Nós-Outros presents fragmented cut-outs of the River Minho as it flows towards the sea, there is no precise dramatic structure, but images are grouped together following a different order of relationships, resulting in a format that is closer to a mosaic.
The abstraction of the very concept of a river and the symbolic separation of the elements that make it up could establish a new way of looking at the Minho. Is it possible to talk about a river without its water? Or a river without its bed? Can we talk about the people of the Galician shore without talking about the Portuguese shore? Is it possible to separate the river from the sea? These are the correlations that guided the process of researching and creating this film, the inevitable correspondence between the elements that make up a territory: the defragmentation and the coming together of its parts.
Nós-Outros explores the ideia of continuity and non-interruption, emphasising the affection that exists in this and so many other border regions, bringing us closer to what we have in common and moving us away from the differences. Approaching this territory through the representation of its landscapes makes it visible and inevitable to understand the region in its unity, where the fields, trees, plants and clouds are the same.
FESTIVALS & SCREENINGS
2023 - Festival Caminhos do Cinema Portugués. Coimbra- Portugal
2022 - Festival de Cans. Galicia- Spain
CREDITS
Director
Lucía Alonso
DOP - Editing
Lucía Alonso
Sound Design
Sergio Botelho
Supervisor
Júlio Alves
Texts
Guilherme Vernize
Camare assistant
Santi Gonzalez
Second camera assitant
Nahir Araujo
Narration
Samuel Merino, Alex Sobrino, Irene Moreira, Luis Rocha, Ines Queiroz