Portugal Now - Screening of "Amor Fati" by Cláudia Varejão

Amor Fati seeks out parts that complete each other. These are portraits of couples, friends, families and pets and their owners. They share the intimacy of daily life, habits, beliefs, tastes and even some physical traits. From their faces, from the choreography of their gestures, we unveil the story that binds them. Drawn from everyday life, right before our eyes the film portrays a chorus of affection and the collective memory of a country, evoking Aristophanes’ speech in Plato’s Symposium: Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another’s company? For if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one?

Cláudia Varejão in conversation (online)

Cláudia Varejão (1980) Studied at the Creativity and Artistic Creation Program of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foun- dation, in partnership with the German Film und Fernsehakade- mie Berlin and the São Paulo International Film Acadamy. She also studied Photography at AR.CO in Lisbon. Claúdia is the author of the short film trilogy Weekend, A Cold Day and Morning Light. Ama-san, a portrait of japanese divers, was her feature debut, receiving dozens of awards around the world, followed by In The Darkness of the Theater I Take Off My Shoes, a film that shows the intimacy between a group of dancers within a dance company. Amor Fati is her latest film scheduled to premiere in 2020 and in Wolf and Dog, in development, she will return to fiction. Cláudia’s films have been selected for and awarded at the most prestigious film festivals, including Locarno, Rotterdam, Visions du Reel, Cine- ma du Reel, Karlovy Vary, Art of the Real - Lincoln Center, among many others. Besides her work as a filmmaker, she developed a career as a photographer and she’s a guest professor at AR.CO and the Catholic University of Porto. Her work, whether in film, photography, documentary or fiction, is based on its proximity to the people portrayed.

FILMOGRAPHY

I'm Full of It (2021), A Punk called Ribas (2019), Metamorfose (2018)

Amor Fati (2020), Ama-San (2016), No Escuro do Cinema Descalço os Sapatos (2016), Luz da Manhã (2011), Um Dia Frio (2011), Fim-de-Semana (2007), Falta-Me (2004)