Augusto M. Seabra used to say that programming is an extension of critique. Critique as a mode of being in the world, seeking to read the relationships between things close and distant, between practices and gestures, bringing them back in the form of thought. Thinking without office hours or disciplinary borders but rather materializing in choices, precisions, and attempts that offer those who wish to receive them, the fabric of their doubts and passions. Programming cinema as an extended critique is, for Augusto, a way of summoning the world to reflect itself cinematically — and hence, a matter of life.
In the 2007 Doclisboa catalogue, the year Augusto began to build New Visions as we know the strand today, the first film listed in that strand is 12 Instants d’Amour non Partagé, by Frank Beauvais. The happy coincidences of the alphabetical ordering of films provide us with this synopsis of the encounters between Augusto and all things. Love finding its forms in non-reciprocity, music as a space and matter for sharing a world that otherwise is mismatched, disarticulated, offering solitudes. Such violence is a bit sweeter if brought to others in a fortuitous encounter at the cinema, at a concert, or in a conversation.
In a history made of multiplicities, by many people, Augusto is one of the vital grounds of Doclisboa. He’s been its associate programmer, programming director, co-director. Above all he has taught us, to those who had the happiness of learning from him, the joys of discussing films with the entirety of one’s thinking. Putting our own skins in the game, laying our entire world on a shared table, and allowing the discussion to offer us the final shape of our work. Augusto had the generosity to confront and challenge us, walking with us through the delights of discovering that programming films is, above all, a rigorous and deeply pleasurable activity in which the films — everything that they are and engage —are the plummet and the reason of the festival.
That is why Augusto is inseparable from Doclisboa, even years after deciding it was time to leave because he did not want to “eternalize” himself. That’s how he used to say it, but the truth is that he still resonates every time one of us needs to remember how to do what we do. Similarly, he is inseparable from the construction of thought about cinema, art and culture in Portugal. He offered keys for interpretation that opened spaces for all of us to understand better what we do. We think of the beautiful expression “Geração Curtas” [Generation Shorts], we think of the programmes of filmed diaries and self-portraits that he programmed long before that form became almost omnipresent. We think of the critical autonomy in which he asserted himself — the sovereignty of thought chooses everything, or else it serves no purpose. Augusto could be autonomous because he knew that the transmission of thought is, in itself, its substance. It does not require reciprocity, it offers itself to everyone, even when difficult and contradictory.
In the film The Amazed Spectator, by Edgar Pêra, Augusto says at a certain point that what he enjoys the most about cinema is being surprised by the unexpectedness of a shot that emerges after its preceding one. It is such open gaze for surprise and for falling in love with every new scene of a film that we will cherish and honor at every new edition of Doclisboa. The strength with which Augusto sometimes started a conversation by lifting his head, laying his hand on the table, and saying — I am going to defend this film.
It has been a privilege to watch and discuss films with you, Augusto.
Apordoc and Doclisboa
