There are very strong connections with your previous film, Blue Flower (premiered at Doclisboa 2014). How do you position Striking Land in your path as a filmmaker?
Striking Land comes after Blue Flower. Both were filmed in the same place and stem from the very same impulse. However, the relationship created with each is different. There is also another approach on the matter, as if to reveal something about itself.
Sound plays an extremely important role in the construction of the narrative, in the tension created in each shot. Can you tell us a little about the work you’ve done in this regard?
It is a very concrete and abstract work to explain. Sound demands attention to detail in every shot. Along the movement of the film, in addition to the concrete action of the image, other elements of nature – characters in the film – have something to convey. The experience in the land, the moments of listening, also led to silence. That, in contrast with the machines, the hoes, and the touching of the earth, creates a distant sound perspective. Sometimes even on a different scale, not always human. After the direct sound recording, and the collection of environments, the sound editing and mixing was decisive to materialize every detail.
How do you film something that is familiar, creating a mystery, with the camera and the montage?
Although many of the locations where I shot are familiar to me, I am dazzled by nature every day. There are many ways to communicate, and in the land experience, word is least useful. The mystery stems from this lack of information, the unknown, and the darkness. All these are essential elements to cinema. As I was filming, I became more familiar with the mystery, something that would be unveiled in the montage.
