31/10/2019 - The Safest Place in the World won the main prize and Babado received €1,000, while Peruvian-French project The Memory of Butterflies got the Arquipélago residency

Babado directors Camila Freitas and João Vieira Torres collect their award with the jury in the background (© Joana Linda/Doclisboa)

Doclisboa's Arché event, a laboratory of professional activities aimed at directors, producers and other film professionals from Iberoamerican countries and Italy, held its fifth edition this year during the festival (17-27 October).

This time around, 13 projects from Portugal, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Italy, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Spain and Mexico took part in preparation and pitching with their tutors Andrés Duque, Karen Akerman and Virginia García del Pino.

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The RTP Award for best project in the post-production stage, worth €25,000, went to The Safest Place in the World by Brazilian filmmakers Aline Lata (Obsession) and Helena Wolfenson (Corpos Livres). Produced by Evelyn Mab and Priscilla Pomerantzeff of the Sao Paolo-based company Krassivaya Filmes, the film portrays the last three years in the life of Marlon, a young man whose life was turned upside down after one of the most terrible socio-environmental tragedies in the world took place in Minas Gerais in 2015.

Babado, co-directed by Camila Freitas (Chão) and João Vieira Torres (Ghost Children) and co-produced by Marina Meliande of Brazil's Duas Mariola and Pedro Fernandes Duarte of Portugal's Primeira Idade, received the NOVA / FCSH Award for best Arché workshops project, worth €1,000. “Babado” is a term used by young people in the Amazonian tri-border of Brazil, Peru and Colombia to refer to economic-sexual exchanges. Among these people are the members of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda temple of Father Jairo, a bisexual man who used to be a transexual and sex worker as most of them are. In a constant experience of performativity, the group adorns and reinvents their bodies for the reception of entities in the temple as well as for their work in the streets.

A special mention and the Arquipélago – Contemporary Art Center Award for best project in the writing stage, consisting of a two-week residency at the center in Azores, went to The Memory of Butterflies by Peruvian first-time feature filmmaker Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski. Co-produced by Isabel Madueño of Lima-based Miti Films and Lorenzo Bianchi and Anthony Lapia of the French company Société Acéphale, the project centres on the genocide of indigenous Huitotos, Ocainas, Boras, Muinanes, Resígaros, Andoques and Nonuyas who were killed from 1906 to 1913 by the Peruvian Amazon Company. Impressive archive images of these tribes and of “progress” with the cauchero (rubber extractors), presented as pacifiers of indigenous people as a result of the propaganda at the time, do not show their destiny. The director aims to explore the footage through both analytical and fictional means and lets alternative narratives emerge from this propaganda material.

The full list of Arché projects is available here.

RTP Award for best project in the post-production stage
The Safest Place in the World - Aline Lata, Helena Wolfenson (Brazil)

NOVA / FCSH Award for best Arché workshops project
Babado - Camila Freitas, João Vieira Torres (Brazil/Portugal)
Spencial Mention
The Memory of Butterflies - Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski (Peru/France)

Arquipélago – Contemporary Art Center Award for best project in the writing stage
The Memory of Butterflies - Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski