Goncalo Tocha won the 9th DocLisboa - International Film Festival with a documentary about the Azores

Tuesday, 06 December 2011 19:47

"Na Terra no na Lua" ("It's on Earth, not on the Moon") is a portrait of life on Corvo Island.

The Azorean world has always been a part of Goncalo Tocha's life, since some of his family members live on Sao Miguel Island. He went to Corvo for the first time to shoot this documentary, which took him four years to complete. Apart from winning DocLisboa, " na Terra no na Lua" was also given an honorable mention at the 2011 Locarno Festival, in Switzerland. Corvo is the smallest of the nine Azorean islands, being home to 500 people, but its cultural, architectural and gastronomic heritage is as unique as the 8 sister islands. In 2007, UNESCO classified it as Biosphere Reserve, thus internationally recognizing the island's singular environmental and cultural features.

The following is an interview with film director Goncalo Tocha, whose documentary about the island of Corvo, " Na Terra No Na Lua", was awarded a prize at DOC Lisboa 2011

"The Azores will remain in my camera's lenses"

How are you connected to the Azores? My family, on my mother's side, is from there. I mean, my mother and I were born in Lisbon but my grandfather is from So Miguel. So,from my childhood to my adolescence, we used to spend our holidays on So Miguel. There, I had experiences of evasion and Nature that marked me. After some years without going there I returned in 2005, after the death of my grandfather, to engage in a sort of mourning. My first film, "Balaou" (2007), resulted from that trip. Meanwhile, you continue to shoot in the Azores. Your documentary " Na Terra No Na Lua", in which you film the island of Corvo, won the Great Prize Cidade de Lisboa at DOC 2011.

I went to Corvo with the idea of making a film, even though at the time I did not know what kind of film I was going to make. There were two people, me, with the camera, and Didio Pestana, with the sound, but we had no idea about what to shoot or about the length of the film. But then this documentary came into existence.

You spoke of your experiences of evasion and Nature in the Azores. Are these two prominent aspects of the archipelago? There, nature is very marking and people are also verymarked by nature. I do not like to separate Nature from people or the opposite, because in the Azores they complement each other. Nature in the Azores is fantastic and different from one place to another, in each island nature transforms itself into something new.

Your idea is to discover the Azores? My idea is to return to places where I cannot get to by myself because I only went there when I was a child, following the instructions of others. Today I go to places that I no longer remember and that I rediscover. On the one hand, nature reinvented itself and, on the other, the Azores itself has also changed. I remember the roads of my childhood and the rocks that cry as the water rolls down the slopes. It is nature that eats us, in the same sense that we were devoured by childhood.

You spoke of some experiences that the Azores offers visitors. Do you take the opportunity toenjoy them? I enjoy experiencing everything in the Azores, with the camera at hand. Just recently I returned to Faial and discovered new and marvelous places that I could not stop filming.

We can conclude, therefore, that your relationship with the Azores is far from ending? There is still much to be discovered in the Azores and I intend to return many times. I constantly think of returning. With this film (" Na Terra No Na Lua") I went to what is said to be the limit: the island of Corvo. I had never been to the western islands but I ended upmaking a film about Corvo. I managed to capture an island in a film but that is only possible in Corvo, not on the other, larger, islands. But there are other ideas and the Azores will remain in my camera's lenses.