Miguel Gonçalves Mendes

Miguel Gonçalves Mendes
Born	(1978-09-02) September 2, 1978 Covilhã, Portugal
Occupation	Film Director, Screenwriter, Film Producer
Years active	2002–present
Website	www.jumpcut.pt

Miguel Gonçalves Mendes (Covilhã, September 2, 1978) is a Portuguese director, screenwriter and producer. He is the author of José and Pilar (2010), a documentary about Nobel Prize for Literature winner José Saramago, co-produced by Pedro and Augustín Almodóvar (Talk to Her, The Skin I Live In) and Fernando Meirelles (City of God and The Constant Gardener).^[1] In 2011, after a successful international festival circuit, the movie spurred an unprecedented popular movement in Portugal,^[2]^[3] which in turn sparked a rare debate over Portuguese cinema and a campaign for the Oscar nominations in Los Angeles and New York. Currently, Miguel is shooting his new documentary, The Meaning of Life, produced by Fernando Meirelles, which stars distinct world personalities.

Biography

Miguel studied International Relationships (ISCSP – Technical University of Lisbon) and History – Archaeology (New University of Lisbon) before graduating in Film by the Lisbon Theatre and Film School, specializing in Film Editing. In 2002, he founded JumpCut, through which he produced all his projects until 2014.

The First Years

D. Nieves (2002)

Documentary that explores the cultural proximity between Portugal and Galiza, its historical roots, its most profound motives and its consequences. It earned the director the first awards of his career, such as the Massimo Troisi European Award, in Italy.

Autography (2004)

Documentary that portrays the life, the path and the individuality of the Portuguese painter and poet Mário Cesariny. Won Best Portuguese Documentary in DocLisboa 2004.

The Battle of the Three Kings (2005)

Miguel’s first fiction feature, shot in Morocco, an insane and fatal game of jealousy.

Floripes (2007)

Back to the documentary, Miguel explored the legend of Floripes, an enchanted Moor who roams every night along the village of Olhão, sad and aimless, inebriating the fishermen with a spell that guides them into the sea, into death.

Silence Course (2007)

Experimental film, based on the aesthetic universe of Maria Gabriela Llansol.

José and Pilar (2010)

José and Pilar observes the life of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and finds an unknown Saramago, proving that genius and simplicity are compatible. The Elephant Journey, the book that narrates the adventures and misadventures of a pachyderm transported from King João III’s court to that of the Austrian Archduke Maximilian, is the departing point of a movie that portrays the relationship between Nobel Prize winner José Saramago and his wife Pilar del Rio. Spending the days with the couple, in Lanzarote and Lisbon, at home and during work trips all over the world, it reveals a surprising new side of the author, emerged in his creative process and as part of a couple determined in changing the world – or, at least, make it better. After it became Miguel Mendes’s most popular work, with commercial exhibitions in Portugal, Spain, Brasil, México and Italy and several awards and nominations, the movie stood out for the uncommon support it received from the Portuguese audience and for the debate it ignited around Portuguese cinema, perpetually divorced from the Portuguese people. The film ended up being picked up as Portugal’s candidate for the nomination to Best Foreign Film in the Oscars.^[4] It got a screening campaign in the United States, which included an exhibition in the MoMA,^[5] collected the praise of publications like Variety^[6] and The New York Times,^[7] and got shortlisted for Best Original Song at the Oscars with Já Não Estar (written by José Mário Branco and interpreted by Camané).

I've Got Nothing of Mine (2012)

Miguel and Brazilian writers Tatiana Salem Levy and João Paulo Cuenca travelled to the Far East for a sharing of experiences with artists and thinkers from Macau, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. The project I’ve Got Nothing of Mine was born from it. It is described by the authors as “a blend between a travel diary and fiction” and was distributed as a web series. However, as the series progresses, the intended veracity of the diary quickly morphs into a full-blown original fictional narrative that won’t allow the viewer to know what is real anymore, if anything. A sort of visual poem that questions the Portuguese cultural identity as it clashes against another culture – which, in the particular case of Macau, is previously contaminated by the culture it clashes against. An example of a cultural encounter and an identity’s reconstruction, in a world where all civilizations were built over the ruins of each other. Known for his alternative distribution methods, Miguel made the whole series available online for free.

The Meaning of Life (TBA)

Miguel’s next project, produced by O2 Filmes, has already begun shooting around the world and is “a complex project due to its scale and the number of characters involved”. The director intends to take to the extreme the narrative work he began developing in José and Pilar, where he captures reality and reworks it through a classical narrative lens.^[8]

The protagonist is Giovane Brisotto, a young Brazilian man bearer of a rare incurable disease of Portuguese origins, spread throughout the globe 500 years ago during the Discoveries. Waiting for a transplant, Giovane decides to embark on a trip around the world, tracing the route of the first Portuguese expedition that spread the disease. During the trip the protagonist contacts, through media (TV, cinema, advertising, etc.) with seven public figures, seven archetypes, seen as new heroes of contemporaneity. But it is the viewer who, in parallel narratives, gains privileged access to the private and quotidian universe of them all, discovering what’s behind their personas, followed and idolized by millions who search a reference for their lives. The discovery, says Miguel, has to do with “an important composition: the relationship between death, creation, power, movement and the universality of the phenomena”.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (TBA)

Miguel announced another project, the film adaptation of the controversial but worldwide acclaimed work of José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. When released, the book took public flak from then Portuguese Prime-Minister Cavaco Silva, making the author abandon the country forever. The book satirizes the life and death of Jesus Christ by rejecting to treat the characters according to dogmas and myths, portraying them as normal people instead, with conflicting emotions of genuine human beings.

Monograph and Publications

“Miguel Gonçalves Mendes’s work is always of a rare delicacy. Delicacy like the movement that has the right rhythm (everything that’s not delicate is either too slow or too fast). Thus, facing what does not rush nor delay, the portrayed has time to settle, as if falling, in his most quiet ground. And, for that, we see what we never saw before – intimate gestures; and brief, but decisive, expressions. Everything is revealed in the other when the one who wants to see is patient. A patience that regards the details, that’s the art I most admire in Miguel Gonçalves Mendes.”

—Gonçalo M. Tavares^[9]

Autography Verse / Mário Cesariny (2007)

Edited by Assírio & Alvim. Complement to the documentary Autography, with unrevealed interviews.^[10]

José and Pilar – Unrevealed Conversations (2012)

Edited by Quetzal^[11] and Companhia das Letras.^[12] Complement to the documentary José and Pilar, with exclusive extras not featuring in the movie. With preface by Valter Hugo Mãe. Published in Portugal, México, Argentina, Uruguai and Spain.

The Films of Miguel Gonçalves Mendes (2012)

Composed from essays by José Padilha, João Moreira Sales, Valter Hugo Mãe, Luís Sepúlveda, Gonçalo M. Tavares, Maria João Seixas, Baltasar Garzón, among others.^[13]

References

External links

JumpCut (Portuguese, Spanish, English)
IMDB Profile

Authority control	VIAF: 247012603 ISNI: 0000 0003 6939 2009 SUDOC: 163861714 BNF: cb166387235 (data)

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