The Apparition

Premiered at the Fantasporto 2025 competition. The plot adapts W. W. Jacobs' work The Monkey's Paw, which I interpret as being about the desire or need for control, and I saw it as the perfect starting point to explore the human condition in the context of oppression—not only towards others but also towards ourselves. In retrospect, I feel that all of my work focuses on the same theme: human beings as their own jailers, consciously or unconsciously orchestrating their own self-destruction.

Having grown up in a violent family environment, I use the seventh art as a vehicle to understand my own condition and identity. Therefore, all of these characters, no matter how dysfunctional or distinct they may be, are part of me, making this work highly personal despite being an adaptation. At the same time, the idea was also to reflect a kind of microcosm of society in general and of our current times, creating a parallel and multidimensional reality where the modern era and the past are indistinguishable, and the shadow of the Estado Novo (Portuguese dictatorship) is omnipresent in daily life, as if time itself were suspended or trying to move backward.

To achieve this effect, I drew inspiration mainly from two great works, The Tree of Wooden Clogs by Ermanno Olmi and The Spirit of the Beehive by Víctor Erice, as well as the storytelling of Roy Andersson, Stanley Kubrick, and George Miller, where much of the plot is told through the entire mise en scène, deliberately breaking some cinematic conventions regarding camera positioning and avoiding guiding the viewer’s gaze, thereby inviting multiple viewings and interpretations.

The goal is to convey the message that it is essential to analyze and critique every ideology or belief, especially our own, and to understand whether or not they are free from flaws.