Parafiction | Salomé Lamas

Salomé Lamas is one of the most interesting young filmmakers at the moment. She works in cinema as well as in the context of fine arts, sometimes using minimal settings and reduced cinematic procedures, then again switching to an essayistic mode, shifting between documentary and fiction. Multiple layers of meaning pile up next to each other and one above the other. In order to refer to those intentional and coincidental permeations of fact and fiction, Lamas introduced the term “parafiction”. In her practice, this term displays by her playfully handling the concepts of history and individual memory, disclosing seemingly objective narratives’ construction mechanisms and questioning human judgement. Doing so, the films put themselves at the heart of the discourse on truth and reliable narration, a discourse which, interestingly, she leads on a theoretic level in her publications as well.

Content-wise, the films involve the depiction of things seemingly not showable, things suppressed, of traumas and violence. For instance, the protagonist in TERRA DE NINGUÉM (2012) talks with greatest calmness about monstrous brutalities he committed, as well as about racism and violence. An endeavour built on unreliable grounds: memories and their glamorising, report and self-fashioning overlap. EXTINCTION (2018) tells of Transnistria, self-proclaimed microstate not recognised by other states, and the local, fluid identities. ELDORADO XXI (2016) shows the landscapes of global capitalism, attle heaps in the Peruvian Andes, where gold is extracted under life-hostile conditions. The workers express themselves on their own.

Born 1987 in Lisbon, Lamas studied directing and editing at Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (ESTC) in Lisbon as well as at Prague film academy FAMU. In addition, she completed her art studies at Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam and is currently doing her doctorate in film sciences at University of Coimbra. Her works are produced by “O Som e a Fúria“, a production and distribution network contributing significantly to the visibility of Portuguese auteur-cinema.