A MUTUAL RESPECT PRESENTS
TAPROBANA
A FILM BY GABRIEL ABRANTES
with Jani Zhao and Natxo Checa
Screenings
Berlinale Shorts I
Mon, Feb 10, 16h – CinemaxX
5
Wed, Feb 12, 22h – CinemaxX
3
Fri, Feb 14, 17h45 –
Colosseum 1
Berlinale Shorts Go
West
Sun, Feb 16, 19h30 –
Zoo Palast 2
Screening Shorts –
A Compilation of Short Films
Wed, Feb, 12 11h
– HAU Hebbel am Ufer
Synopsis
In this short comedy, Luís Vaz
de Camões, the greatest Portuguese renaissance poet, struggles creatively while
engaging in a hedonistic, coprophagic, and drug addled lifestyle. The film follows
the poet, and his lover Dinamene, as he writes his masterpiece, the epic poem s
Lusíadas. He travels from the cacophony of the Indic jungles, surrounded by
allegorical elephants and rhyming macaques, to the frontier of Heaven and Hell,
where he is confronted by his fantasy: fame and immortality.
Director’s Note
Camões was the first
European poet to have an extended experience in Africa, India and Indochina. He
wrote Os Lusíadas while he was exiled in the Indes, a poem that
glorifies the Portuguese navigators that departed from Lusitanian shores and
traveled to Taprobana, now known as Sri Lanka.
Many myths surround
Camões’ voyages, and one in particular was an inspiration for this film. It has
Camões falling in love with a Chinese courtesan, which he then baptized with a
Greek nymph’s name: Dinamene. The myth goes on to have Camões and Dinamene
imprisoned on a boat to Goa and suffering a shipwreck. Supposedly his lover
drowned, as Camões was too busy swimming after his manuscript.
Taprobana is intended as a poetic and absurd
satire about this contradictory and charming character; a European exiled in
the Indes, but obsessed with his homeland; an iconoclast rapscallion that wrote
some of the most sublime verses of the Portuguese language, where spiritual
illumination is inextricable from sexual apotheosis.
Gabriel Abrantes - Director / Producer
Gabriel
Abrantes (b.1984) is an artist and filmmaker who has produced a significant
body of work in film since studying at The Cooper Union, L’ École National des
Beaux-Arts and Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains. Abrantes is
the winner of several prizes, including the Golden Leopard for Best
International Short Film at the Locarno Film Festival 2010 for his film A
History of Mutual Respect. His films have premiered at festivals such as La
Biennale di Venezia, Locarno, Toronto. He has exhibited since 2002 in museums
such as the MIT:List Center for the Arts in Boston, Palais de Tokyo in Paris,
Musee d’Art Moderne in Paris, and Museu Serralves in Porto
Jani Zhao -Actress
Jani Zhao
(1992) is a Portuguese actress of Chinese descent. She studied at Teatro Escola
Proficional de Cascais, and from early on has established a career in modeling
and acting. She has been one of the title characters in a number of Portuguese
television productions, such as Floribella, Rebelde Way, Morangos
com Açucar and Sentimentos. She has also worked on stage
productions, such as Dead End by Jorge Andrade, premiered at Maria Matos
Theatre, in Lisbon. She is currently acting on a new T.V. production in Luanda,
Angola.
Natxo Checa -Actor / Producer
Natxo Checa is a curator and
producer based in Lisbon, Portugal. In 2009 he was the curator of the
Portuguese Pavillon at the 53rd Biennale di Venezia, working with João Maria
Gusmão and Pedro Paiva on their exhibition: “Experiments and Observations on
Different Kinds Of Air”. Since 1994 he has worked as a curator and producer at
Galeria Zé dos Bois. His main concern is to develop an intimate relationship
with certain artists’ practices by accompanying the entire process from
research to fieldwork, production to exhibition. His interdisciplinary approach
to curating and production is what has led him to produce Abrantes’ films, work
as a cinematographer on a number of Abrantes’ projects, as well as act in of
the main roles of Taprobana.
Producers
A Mutual Respect
Productions -Production Company
A Mutual Respect is
a film production company established in 2010 in Lisbon by Gabriel Abrantes,
Natxo Checa and Associação Zé dos Bois. Its main ambition is to find
alternative and flexible means to produce moving image based works and films of
an innovative and experimental nature.
ZDB (Marta
Furtado / Joana Botelho) -Producer
Zé dos Bois (ZDB) is
a non-profit cultural association. It has functioned as a cultural center, in
the center of Lisbon, since 1994. It has served as a platform for the creation,
production and exhibition of contemporary art exhibitions, performance, drama,
cinema, music and artistic residencies. It has collaborated with artists such
as: João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, Thurston Moore, Keiji Haino, Kenneth
Anger, Patrícia Portela, Animal Collective, John Romão, Alexandre Estrela, Jean
Baudrillard, and Emory Douglas.
Vimukthi
Jayasundara -Producer
Vimukthi Jayasundara
is an award-winning Sri Lankan film director, screenwriter and visual artist.
His first feature, The Forsaken Land (2005) won the Caméra d’Or at the
2005 Cannes Film Festival, making him the only Sri Lankan to win the award. He
followed this with Between Two Worlds (2009) which got nominated for the
Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival 2009. Vimukthi’s third
feature, Mushrooms (2011) was filmed in India and went on to be selected for
the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival 2011.
CPH: DOX /
DOX:LAB -Producer
DOX:LAB is
CPH:DOX’s international film production program launched in 2009. A laboratory
for creativity and artistic exchange, where selected filmmakers are paired in teams
of two and given carte blanche and a grant to make a film. The experiment has
been an overwhelming success with films selected for film festivals like Berlin
and Venice, as well as Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Toronto and Locarno.
TAPROBANA
A film by Gabriel
Abrantes
with
Jani Zhao - Dinamene
Natxo Checa - Luís
Vaz de Camões
U.G. Punchi Banda - Male
Farmer
B. Wimalawate - Woman
Farmer
Lasantha David - Opium
Dealer
Gabriel Abrantes - Portuguese
Authority
Dhamika Amarashinghe Portuguese
Authority
João Pedro Vale - King
Filipe II
André Príncipe - King’s
Page
Alexandre Melo - Petrarch
Gonçalo Pena - Homer
Mónica Talina - Nymph
I
Ana Rita Lopes - Nymph
II
Joana Pais de Brito - Nymph
III
Andreia Marcelino -Nymph IV
Screenplay
Gabriel Abrantes
Screenplay Consultant
Lasantha David
Camera
Gabriel Abrantes
Natxo Checa
Lakruwan Withanage
Produced by
A Mutual Respect
Productions
Vimukthi Jayasundara
CPH DOX:LAB
in corporation with
Danish Centre for
Culture and Development
Producers
Natxo Checa, Marta
Furtado, Gabriel Abrantes and Vimukthi Jayasundara
Production
Director
Natxo Checa
Associate
Producers
Patricia Drati
Tine Fischer
Production Management, Portugal
ZDB
Line Producer,
Portugal
Marta Furtado
Joana Botelho
Production
Management, Sri Lanka
24 Frames
Line Producer, Sri
Lanka
Deepal Gunaratne
Driver
Dhamika Amarashinghe
Production
Assistants, Sri Lanka
Lakruwan Withanage
Jani Zhao
Dhamika Amarashinghe
Lasantha David
Editing
Gabriel Abrantes
Special Effects
Gabriel Abrantes
Music
The Barber Of Seville
Overture
By Gioacchino Rossini
Performance by the
Davis High School
Symphony Orchestra at
the
Wennberg Music Festival,
March 27, 2010.
Mondavi Center
for the Performing
Arts,
UC Davis.
Post Production
Dubbing Studio
Obviosom
Sound Mixing and
Post Production Recording
Hugo Leitão
Sound Editing
Hugo Leitão and
Gabriel Abrantes
Foley Artist
Daniel Gries
Image
Post-Production Coordinator
Pedro Ribeiro
Color Correction
Jennifer Mendes
Image and Sound
Post Production
Loudness Films,
Lisbon
Director of Post
Production Facilities
Branko Neskov
16mm Developing Lab
Eclair Studios, Paris
Director Of Costumer
Relations, Post Production
Gina Barbier
Film
Kodak 16Mm Vision III
Production Stills
Photographer
Susana Pomba
Special Thanks
Tiago Borges, Filipe
Felizardo, Alexandre Rendeiro, Carlos Gaspar, Makoto Yagyu, Funerária Moreira
Ramos, Isabel Alves, Sérgio Alxeredo, Ael Dallier Vega, Mati Diop, Justin
Taurand, Aurelien Deseez, Judith Lou Levy, Benjamin Crotty, Daniel Schmidt,
Maria João Mayer, Joana Nascimento, Manuel Poças, Miguel Valverde, Obviosom
This film benefited
from the kind support of Maria Gonzaga – Costumes, Rotas do Sal, Celso Santos
e Jorge Pina, Obviosom
Filming at Jeronimos
Monastery made possible by the kind support of DGPC/ Mosteiro dos Jerónimos
Trips funded by the
kind support of Air France – Fid:lab Prize
This film was made
possible by the
financial support of Danish Centre for Culture and Development / Fid:lab
Marseille
Very Special Thanks
to Hélder Macedo
Taprobana © 2013 All
Rights Reserved
Mutual Respect
Productions
The promotion
of this film at the Berlinale 2014 benefited from the kind support of Instituto
do Cinema e Audiovisual in Portugal.