30/08/2022 - Originally created in 2000, the storied film seminar maintains its immersive experience, organising sessions and debates with guest filmmakers and 100 participants

The 2022 edition of Doc’s Kingdom kicks off this week. From 1-6 September, Mariana Caló, Francisco Queimadela, Alexandra Cuesta, Paula Gaitán, Boris Lehman and João Vieira Torres will be the guest filmmakers invited to take part in this international film seminar held in Arcos de Valdevez. Organised by APORDOC (Associação pelo Documentário), with public funding from the ICA, Doc’s Kingdom presents an immersive programme with surprise screenings and open, informal, collective debates. Bringing together a group of international and national participants each year, as well as guest filmmakers, the seminar’s current edition is named after Alberto Seixas Santos’ 1982 film Gestures and Fragments. It’s a title that sums up the activities proposed for this year’s seminar, curated by artistic directors Amarante Abramovici and Nuno Lisboa: to gather together gestures and fragments of travels, encounters, people, places, tracks and trails of revolutions.

From what has so far been disclosed of this edition’s (as usual mostly secret) programme, the seminar will host a welcome gathering in the discussion room, with the presentation of Alberto Pagán’s book Emotional Materials/Personal Processes (published by Stereo Editions). After this, Diana Toucedo (Thirty Souls [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Diana Toucedo
film profile]) will present a talk, accompanied by a group of seven students from the new Master of Film and Artistic Research in and Through Cinema, at the Netherlands Film Academy (AHK). This collective conversation, part of the collaboration between Doc’s Kingdom and AHK, will be focused on creative processes, observation, listening and attention.

The starting point for the screenings programme will be a session with a surprise film by Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela, followed by the official opening, with a screening of Paula Gaitán’s Subtle Interferences. It has also been revealed that, later on during the seminar, Alexandra Cuesta will present a project in development entitled The Movement of Things. In addition, João Vieira Torres will revisit Aurora, a project that got an airing this summer in the performance Looking for Aurora, presented at MoMA in collaboration with the Flaherty Film Seminar.

There is a link between the Flaherty Film Seminar and Doc’s Kingdom as well this year, with a special screening of Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, followed by a discussion with José Manuel Costa (the director of the Cinemateca Portuguesa) and other special guests. It’s a collaboration that brings Doc’s Kingdom back to its roots, bearing in mind that it’s a seminar that was founded in 2000 by Costa, inspired by the Flaherty Film Seminar.

In the same spirit of encounters, dialogue and synergy, Doc’s Kingdom is maintaining its Dear Doc Fellowship programme, supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. This year’s selected residents have already been part of a series of online talks and tasks, which will continue after the experience in Arcos de Valdevez. For example, the welcome gathering at Doc’s Kingdom was organised in the scope of this fellowship programme. During the seminar, the fellows will be able to participate in the proposed activities, whilst also playing an active, working role in the organisational side of the event.

After a six-day immersive experience, with three screenings per day – as well as talks, meals, walks and maybe even some swimming in the River Vez – Doc’s Kingdom will continue unspooling in Lisbon for two screenings presented by Boris Lehman at the Cinemateca Portuguesa.