Gabriel Abrantes. Corty Libertade

Gabriel Abrantes & Benjamin Crotty
Liberdade, 2011
Single-channel video, colour, sound, 17΄
Produced by A Mutual Respect Productions, with the financial support of Toyota de Angola
Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Francisco Fino, Lisbon

 

Liberdade (Freedom – a neighbourhood in Sao Paolo), which Abrantes made together with artist Benjamin Crotty, can be seen as a philosophical love story demonstrating the effects of colonialism, occupation, and globalisation. Shot in Angola, and set in a broad spectrum of political, social, and material contexts, the film – a visually ravishing tale of romance, crime, and erectile dysfunction – chronicles the relationship between an Angolan boy and a Chinese girl as they attempt to forge a shared, transcultural identity.

Gabriel Abrantes is a filmmaker whose practice is grounded in an exploration of cinematographic language. He addresses historical, political and social matters with a special focus on postcolonial, gender and identity issues. His films, which touch upon folklore, current realities and politics, create layers of unlikely readings by subverting traditional narratives through the use of absurd humour. Hollywood aesthetics are mixed with documentary and experimental film techniques, digital and analogue technologies.

Benjamin Crotty is a visual artist and filmmaker. He frequently probes into historical archives that he reinterprets fictionally, through the use of absurd humour. He has worked on various occasions with Gabriel Abrantes.

Biography

Gabriel Abrantes lives and works in Lisbon. He explores cinematographic language in his films and videos – he writes, directs, produces and occasionally also acts in them. His films have premiered at the Cannes, Berlinale, Locarno, Venice Biennial, and Toronto international film festivals. They have received a number of awards, including the Grand Prix at the Semaine de la Critique, the EFA prize at Berlinale, the Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival, and the EDP Young Artist Award. His work has been exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery and Tate Britain (London), the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the MIT List Visual Arts Center (Boston), the Kunst Werke (Berlin) and Serralves Museum (Porto). He participated in the 32nd São Paulo Biennial, the 2016 Bienal Tropical, and the 2014 Bienal d’Image Mouvement. His work has been shown in retrospective screening series at the Lincoln Center (New York) and BAFICI (Buenos Aires).

www.gabrielabrantes.com

Benjamin Crotty studied art at Yale and Le Fresnoy. He lives and works in France and the United States. He is a visual artist and also makes short films and works for television. Crotty has worked on various occasions with Gabriel Abrantes; their films have won several awards. His filmography includes Hnefafylli af ήorski/Fistful of Cod (2007, short film), Visionary Iraq

(2009, short film, co-directed), Ibi in Rauma/Pure Ibi (2010, for TV), Little People Flores 2: The Prequel (2010, short film), Liberate (2011, short film), Fort Buchanan (2012, short film), Fort Buchanan (2014), Division Movement to Vungtau (2016, co-directed). Crotty’s work has been shown at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, Tate Modern, London, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and the

Biennale of Moving Images at Centre d’Art Contemporain de Genève.

 

 

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