Bette Gordon

A pioneer in American Independent Cinema, Bette Gordon is known for her bold explorations of themes related to sexuality, desire and power. Gordon’s acclaimed classic indie film VARIETY, a bold story about a woman who sells tickets at a pornographic movie theatre, is set in the neon-lit squalor of Times Square in the mid 1980’s. Her other feature films include Luminous Motion, (2000) a hypnotic and disturbing road movie, The Drowning (2017), a psychological thriller based on the novel by British author Pat Barker, and Handsome Harry (2010). Gordon’s work has shown at major international festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Locarno, Vienna, Warsaw, Rotterdam and Tribeca. The film critic John Powers has said, “Gordon’s willingness to explore dangerous territory puts her miles ahead of most filmmakers.”

Sandro Aguilar

Born in 1974 in Portugal, Sandro Aguilar studied film at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema. In 1998, he founded the production company O Som e a Fúria. His films have won awards at festivals such as La Biennale di Venezia, Locarno FF, Gijón, Oberhausen,Vila do Conde, Indielisboa FF and have been shown in the most relevant film festivals worldwide. Two times nominated for the EFA – Best European Short Film Award. Retrospectives of his work have been programmed at Rotterdam IFF, BAFICI, New York Film Festival, Arsenal-Berlin and Oberhausen FF. In 2013, he was invited into the renowned DAAD Artist Residency, Berlin.

Letícia Ramos

Letícia Ramos has cultivated a specific interest in the procedures and evolution of photography and film techniques since the beginning of her career in the early 2000s. Her research-based projects explore the material, historical and conceptual aspects of image-making and how it shapes and interferes with our perception of reality. Like an empiricist scientist, for each project, Ramos develops all kinds of contraptions and image capturing machines that assist her in generating imagery and building narratives that go beyond what an existing camera or a given cinematographic lexicon can achieve. From experimental film emulsions to homemade pinhole cameras to microfilming and x-ray machines, Ramos’s prototypical devices and made-up methods are often the bridge between ancient and invented stories, scientific experiments, natural and sociopolitical events. More recently, she has devoted her research to environment and climate disasters, always drawing on speculative fabulation, mysticism, and science-fiction as points of both departure and arrival.

Her works were exhibited in spaces such as Tate Modern, Moreira Salles Institute, Itaú Cultural, Fundação Iberê Camargo, Berardo Collection Museum, CAPC Musée d’art contemporain (Bordeaux), Pivô Art Center. Her works are in collections such as Kadist,  Fundación Botin, Novo Musee de Mônaco, Museum of Modern Art de São Paulo , Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and Itau Cultural.

António Júlio Duarte

He studied photography at AR.CO in Lisbon and at the Royal College of Art in London. The author of several books, his work has been exhibited regularly in Portugal and abroad since 1990.