Pursuit of Sacredness - 2007

short resume: «This film is a hommage to a portuguese poet named Sebastião Alba. The hommage is built from a poem of Antonin Artaud named "The Pursuit of Fecality". The violence of the cross drawed with shit symbolizes the violence that the portuguese poet endured in his last years of life in a portuguese city marked by an intense catholicism together with a high intolerance to difference. In this case, the difference was Alba's way of life, despizing the materialist way of life of the european adopted after the 1975 revolution.» larger: «This movie was directed in order to homage the poet Sebastião Alba, through Antonin Artaud's poem "Pursuit of Fecality". In this movie we can also find poems by Alba, as well as the director, Ricardo Leite. The movie was shot entirely in Braga, where the poet lived his last years, prior to his death. The evoked cross, the cross of fecal matter, of decadence and defy is a symbol of words and images, shared by Alba, Artaud and the director. There is a cross between body and essence, fecal matter and relatives in a tragic and cruel poetic game. Sebastião Alba was born in Braga on March 11, 1940. He spends his childhood years in Torre de Dona Chama. Aged 9, he ships to Mozambique. When he is 13, enticed by his father, he stars reading various classical novels. Furthermore, he keeps on reading at his own will. When he is 21 he joins the army of Continente Geral in Boane, about 13 miles from Lourenço Marques. He flees, only to get caught and acused of smuggling military items. Aged 26 he publishes his first book – Poesias, in Quelimane. He works as a reporter and gets acquainted with the depths of Mozambique. He gets married in 1969 with Felisbela. Two daughters are born out of this wedlock, Sónia and Neide. In 1974 his brother and close friend dies in an automobile accident. That same year, his book "O Ritmo do Presságio" is released, from the collection "O som e o Sentido", in the Academical bookshop of Lourenço Marques. He teaches Political Economics as well as other subjects in a workshop organized by "Frelimo". In 1978, "A Noite Dividida" is published. In 1983 he leaves Mozambique to go back to Braga with his family. His life starts degenerating at this point, living in rental rooms, drinking, as well as not having a steady job. He gets a divorce in 1993, and his life keeps sinking. In the following year, he starts getting noticed. People start searching for him looking for and interview or just to talk to him. He is now a literary reference. He lives in shelters and in church doorsteps, walking around town, drinking and writing. October 20th 2000, he dies in a hit and run accident. Alba leaves a note to his brother saying "If someday they find your brother Dinis, he will be easy to recognize: two shoes, the clothes in his body and some sheets of paper the police won't understand."»