In the beginning was the weave, and the transmission of its workings, a curse of mortality—so ends Quantum Creole with the fabulous words of the Papel weaver, Zé Interpretador.
While the Punch-card technology, designed for the textile loom was fundamental for the development of the computer, the binary code is closer to the ancient act of weaving than to that of writing. Quantum Creole is an experimental documentary film of collective research into creolization, addressing its historical, ontological and cultural forces. Referring to the minimum physical entity in any interaction—quantum—the film utilizes different imaging forms to read the subversive potential of weaving as Creole code. West African Creole people wove coded messages of social and political resistance into textiles, countering the colonists’ languages and technologies. As the new face of colonization manifests itself as a digital image, upgrading terra nullius in the form of an ultra-liberal free trade zone in the Bissagos Islands, it also marks the continuation of the violence that erupted several centuries ago with the creation of slave-trading posts in the place then known as the Rivers of Guinea and Cape Verde.
Palmarès
Film
02/2020 : Berlinale (Forum Expanded)
Installation
01/2019 : HKW - Berlin
05/2019 : Fondation Gulbenkian - Lisbonne
11/2019 : Tabakalera - San Sebastian
Filipa César is an artist and filmmaker interested in the porous boundaries between the moving image and its reception, the fictional dimensions of the documentary and the economies, politics and poetics inherent to cinema praxis. Great part of César's experimental films have been focussed on the spectres of resistance in Portugal’s geo-political past, questioning mechanisms of history production and proposing spaces for performing subjective knowledge. Since 2011, César has been researching the origins of cinema in Guinea-Bissau, its imaginaries and potencies, developing that research into the collective project Luta ca caba inda (the struggle is not over yet). She was a participant of the research projects Living Archive (2011-13) and Visionary Archive (2013-15) both organised by the Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin.
César premiered her first feature-length essay-film Spell Reel (2017) at the Forum section of the 67. Berlinale, 2017. Selected exhibitions and screenings have taken place at: 29th São Paulo Biennial, 2010; Manifesta 8, Cartagena, 2010; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2011–15; Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2012; Khiasma, Paris, 2011–2015; Kunstwerke, Berlin, 2013; SAAVY Contemporary, Berlin 2014–15; Tensta konsthall, Spånga, 2015; Mumok, Vienna, 2016; Contour 8 Biennial, Mechelen and Gasworks, London; MoMA, New York, 2017.
Selected Film Festivals include :
Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, 2013; Curtas Vila do Conde, 2012-2015; Forum Expanded - Berlinale, 2013 and 2016; IFFR, Rotterdam, 2010, 2013 and 2015; Indie Lisboa, 2010; DocLisboa,2011.
Filmography
F for Fake (2005)
Rapport (2007)
Le Passeur (2008)
The Four Chambered Heart (2009)
Memograma (2010)
The Embassy (2011)
Cacheu (2012)
Conakry (2013)
Sol Miné (2014)
Transmission from the Liberated Zones (2016)
Spell Reel (2017)
Sunstone (2018)
See also
IMDB
UniFrance
Vimeo
"Luta ca caba inda" Salle du Jeu de Paume
"Luta ca caba inda" à Arsenal
Entretien "Luta ca caba inda" [La lutte n'est pas finie] au Jeu de Paume
Entretien Louis Henderson and Filipa Cesar: Op-Film an Archaeology of Optics**