''Azul no Azul'' (English title: ''Blue in Blue'') is a short Portuguese

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

created by Italian filmmaker

Gianmarco Donaggio Gianmarco Donaggio (born 4 August 1991) is an Italian experimental film director and cinematographer. Career In 2010–2020, Donaggio lived and worked between the UK and Norway. He debuted as a film director at the Pesaro Film Festival with t ...

and Portuguese painter Nelson Ferreira. The film was produced and distributed in collaboration with the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Portugal, and it premiered at the museum on the 28th of July 2022, after which it was exhibited in the cinema of the museum from the 29th of July until the 15th of September 2022. A second version was created for

Soares dos Reis National Museum Soares dos Reis National Museum () is a museum, currently housed in the Carrancas Palace situated in the civil parish of Cedofeita, Santo Ildefonso, Sé, Miragaia, São Nicolau e Vitória, in the northern Portuguese city of Porto. Founded in ...

to celebrate the 150 years of the sculpture ‘''The Exiled''’ by

António Soares dos Reis António Manuel Soares dos Reis (Vila Nova de Gaia, 14 October 1847 - Vila Nova de Gaia, 16 February 1889) was a Portuguese sculptor. Studies He first studied at the Portuense Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in sculpture in 1867. He st ...

and screened at the museum from the 10th of December 2022 until 19 March 2023. The city of Lucca projected it on a loop for a week. Listed by

Berlinale Talents Berlinale Talents, formerly Berlinale Talent Campus, is the talent development programme of the Berlin International Film Festival (also called Berlinale). An annual summit and networking platform for 200 outstanding creatives from the fields of ...

when the director was nominated as Talent in 2024. Art critic Simona Frigerio compared this film to

Derek Jarman Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, poet, gardener, and gay rights activist. Biography Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing ...

's last masterpiece

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

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Description

''Azul no Azul'' was ideated by the two artists as an experiment in which Donaggio was translating in cinematic form the painting process of Ferreira's blue series, a collection of paintings that the artist completed over his stay as an artist in residency at National Museum of Contemporary Art (Portugal), MNAC in Lisbon. As the museum curator stated: "In this cycle of contemporary works Nelson's reverence for the great classical masters and academic tradition is attested." As a consequence, in the make of ''Azul no Azul,'' Donaggio was called to the task of adapting the act of filming to both the effect and the process of challenging painting techniques such as of ''alla prima'' - painted directly looking at the subject, and the classic statuary tradition of the subjects depicted. The result is a film experience of blue shapes taking the form of the classical sculptures of the museum sculpture garden, and vice versa, the sculptures melting into blue informal elements.

References

{{Reflist 2022 short films 2022 films Italian avant-garde and experimental films Portuguese short films Silent short films

Description

See also

References