Portales

CountrySpain Year2025 Duration15 min. Projection formatDCP Languageno dialogue DirectionElena Duque Production Rocío Mesa

Spanish premiere

 

The course of the river Guadalete in Cádiz province, Spain, from the mountains to the sea: a catalogue of landscapes that hide other landscapes, a collection of inter-dimensional gateways (and picture postcards) that blend real action and animation.

What can a filmmaker do? The answer to that question from Portales is clear: exchange wonders with the world. To do that, it closely follows the river Guadalete from the mountains of Cadiz to the Puerto de Santa María. Sometimes it does so on foot, at times by car and at other times by motorboat or dragon boat. All the wonders it witnesses —everything there can possibly be in and around a river— are given the full attention they deserve. It looks at the light, which touches everything and which is reflected differently by everything. It looks at the river but also at its sources, small waterfalls and streams. It captures that light and imitates those sounds, transforming this journey towards the sea into a musical. The streams and waterfalls sing first, followed by the invented instruments, Duque herself and Las Carceleras del Puerto by Antoñita Peñuela. The music literally flows from the rocks and from that exercise in constant love; an exercise in capturing and touching upon the world around us. Portales imagines the existence of so many other things: tropical plants and animals, maps of remote places, twinned geographies. It imagines forms on top of forms, and uses them to create montages of what is and what only a film can make be. In other words: to take a world that exists and invent songs for it, whether through sound or image. Almost every shot in this film has been touched upon, as if each shot were a celebration of what exists while trying to invent and add something capable of living up to its grandeur. Cinema exists in Portales like something that can partner with nature to produce ideas with the senses. It gives it purpose and intent. It gives it direction; downstream, towards the sea.

Lucía Salas

Promoted by
Gobierno de Navarra
Organized by
NICDO
With the aid of
Con la financiación del Gobierno de España. Instituto de la Cinematografía y las Artes Audiovisuales Acción Cultural Española Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia Financiado por la Unión Europea. NexGenerationEU
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