cinema no pátio: on falling, by laura carreira

Thursdays in August are once again cinema nights in gnration’s courtyard. In 2025, this cycle programmed by director Eduardo Brito presents four films — Peeping Tom (7 August), On Falling (14 August), 24 Frames (21 August) and Cinco da Tarde (28 August).

on falling
by laura carreira

2024 · Portugal, United Kingdom · 104’ · M/12

Aurora is a Portuguese worker in an e-commerce warehouse in Glasgow. Trapped between her workplace and a shared flat, she dreams of escaping this life of slave wages and social alienation and finding meaning in her life. Marked by the blues and greys of industrial spaces, the persistent gaze of On Falling shows how workers’ lives are insignificant in the face of greater economic forces and paints an intimate and clear portrait of contemporary financial and social precariousness.

“While representing reality, cinema encompasses the real, the unreal, the present, the lived experience, memory and dreams, on an identical and common mental level.” Edgar Morin’s reflection in Cinema or the Imaginary Man builds bridges to the four proposals of Cinema no Pátio 2025: starting with Peeping Tom, Michael Powell’s magnum opus (one of several), a film about filming, a game of mirrors between seeing and peeping, trauma and desire, suspense and paranoia. Next comes Laura Carreira, a Portuguese filmmaker based in Scotland, who shows us the solitude and alienating work of today in On Falling, a dazzling first work, recognised in San Sebastián with the Silver Shell. The following week, it’s time for Abbas Kiarostami’s 24 Frames: a drift through the photographic matrix of cinema and the illusion of movement at 24 frames per second — in this case, each lasting four and a half minutes. And finally, from minutes to hours: Cinco da Tarde, by Eduardo Nunes, between memory and mourning, a delicate portrait of melancholy and the power of small gestures.
— Eduardo Brito

support portuguese republic – culture / general direction of the arts. rtcp – network of portuguese theaters and cinemas.