Manuela Barile & Sérgio Cruz

A Esposa (“The Bride”)

A Esposa (“The Bride”) is a film by Manuela Barile and Sergio Cruz that is driven from a reflection on the ancestral importance of marriage and the crisis that every woman lives, in her own way, depending on the age and the context in which she lives, on the day of the ceremony. Marriage has always been a major change in a woman’s life as she leaves her family forever, the house where she was born and where she always lived, to move to wards a new and uncertain future. To overcome this dramatic moment of passage, the main character conceives her own ritual that some how will help to create a sense to her restless ness and that will be fundamental for her later reintegration in the community from which she comes and to connect her to the memory stream, to the inheritance of ancestors, of which she feels to be continuation.

“A Esposa“ had as a working basis an anthropological survey carried out among women in the rural village of Sequeiros (S. Pedro do Sul, Portugal), some of whom are featured in the film, in person or with their voices telling the experience of the marriage day. The film sound track, a sound composition by Manuela Barile using vocal performance, electroacoustic composition and field recordings, is faithful to the inner world of these women, amplifying and transforming it into an ancestral echo that resounds throughout the sequence of the film.

Manuela Barileis Binaural/Nodar’s artistic director. She is an italian artist who lives and works in the region of São Pedro do Sul, Portugal. Since 2006, she develops place-based projects in the rural region of the mountain range of Gralheira (S. Pedro do Sul Municipality) working in close contact with the local communities. Her artistic works combine sound and visual antropology, installation, performance and voice used as an instrument. Her artistic approach is a continue investigation on reality, about being in the world, about personal experience. It takes in account several aspects such as the natural conformation of the territories, the architecture and history of the places, tradition, memory, ritual and sacred symbolizations deposited as indelible signs in the ground. As a singer, she embarked in 2001 on a personal journey in the field of vocal experimentation applied to free improvisation, based on the use of “extended vocal techniques” focused on the relationship between voice, body, soundscape and acoustic properties of places. Manuela Barile is currently artistic director of Binaural/Nodar, a Portuguese cultural organization dedicated to the promotion of sound and intermediate arts in the rural context. Her films have been screened at several festivals: Australian International Experimental Film Festival, Cologne OFF, Optica, Videoholica, International Film Festival of Camden (U.S.), etc.

Sérgio Cruzis Portuguese filmmaker/artist who lives in London. Initially he studied sound and image in Portugal and the Netherlands. Later, with the aim of combining his interest in film, art and performance arts, he attended the Masters in Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins and “Dance for the Screen” at The Place, London Contemporary Dance School. Since then, his artistic practice has been devoted to film/video as a means to articulate aspects related togesture, creating short films for this purpose which also relate to nature and humanity. Sergio Cruz won several awards including the Young Creators Club of Arts & Ideas – video area, the FNAC New Talent award at the festival Indie Lisboa, the best short film at Tom Video 06 and The Red Mansion Art Prize. His films have been shown internationally on television (eg as part of Three Minute Wonder series of the British Channel 4) and shown in film festivals and art galleries (including the group exhibition Figuring Landscapes at Tate Gallery, London and the individual exhibition at Claims Impulse Art gallery in Berlin).