Cinema for me is…
Portugal – Gonçalo Alves Viana from Europa Cinemas on Vimeo.
Gonçalo in 23 frames
1. Describe yourself in ten words.
Creative, friendly Portuguese, good listener and teacher, calm but funny cinema and music lover.
2. Your best quality? Your worst habit?
Best quality: I understand stuff pretty quickly, actually.
Worst habit: Hum, peanut butter 😛
3. Your dream job?
A film director that plays drums while skydiving.
4. What do you like most about your country?
Food and language.
5. Your favorite dish in your country?
Bacalhau! That’s the easiest of all these questions.
6. Which word or phrase in your native language do you like the most and what does it mean?
Papagaio – it means parrot.
7. What European capital have you visited lately?
Amsterdam.
8. Other than your own, which European country would you love to live in?
Czech Republic, in Prague, more specifically.
9. What does Europe mean to you? 3 values.
Opportunity, standard and I don’t really agree on all that let’s-go-get-some-slaves-in-all-other-continents attitude. Fortunately that is not so obvious on these days.
10. What film made you fall in love with cinema?
2001 Space Odissey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968, US).
11. Your favorite film theatre? What do you like about it?
It’s actually in Wroclaw, Poland. It’s called Nowy Horyzonty and it’s more than a cinema, it’s a whole experience around. They have a very strong presence in the city, they organize many events including a cinema festival in the summer with huge live screenings in the main plaza.
In Portugal, I like Cinemateca, a cinema made for real cinema lovers.
12. Who is your movie hero?
Steve McQueen, the British director.
13. Which movie director would you like to be?
Hum, myself, actually.
14. Briefly describe your favorite scene.
A 22 minute conversation between Bobby Sands (character played by Michael Fassbender) and the priest (played by Rory Mullen), when Bobby is initiating his hunger strike in an Irish prison. The whole scene has only 2 shots, with the first one being recorded for almost 17 minutes. The conversation, the actors, the silences, the change of moods, voice tones, the composition, the light, everything works on that scene. You finish the movie and 3 years after, you might forget most of it, but that scene stays with you for even longer. (Hunger, Steve McQueen, 2008, GB).
15. What are the 3 best European films you have seen in the last year?
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015), GR
11 Minut (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2015), PL
The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015), US.
16. Which film character do you most identify with?
Murphy, from Love (Gaspar Noé, 2015, FR).
17. Your favorite soundtrack or song?
“Everybody’s gotta learn sometimes”, from Beck (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry, 2004, US).
18. If you had to live in a movie, which one would you like it to be?
The Matrix (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, 1999, US), but I had to be a rebel that can bend the rules of gravity and time.
19. Your life becomes a bio-pic. Who plays the role of you?
Shia Lebouf.
20. Which talent would you most like to have?
A higher sense for color and visual composition.
21. What is your most treasured possession?
Love from people around me.
22. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Hitch-hiking alone 1100km in 26 hours.
23. What is your motto?
There is always room for making a difference.