TENDER KISSES ARE HARD TO FIND
Portugal, Great Britain, 2011, 20 min
Ines Ponte
28.01.2012 20:10
My grandparents have known one another since childhood. Of very different characters, the familiarity underpinning their relationship has been crafted through time. Both by the small episodes of everyday life, as well as by the longer duration of their lives.
Ines Ponte was born in 1979, Lisbon, Portugal. Has a degree in Social Anthropology (Portugal, Netherlands), a post-graduation in documentary direction (Portugal), and presently develops work within visual anthropology (United Kingdom). She has worked also as editor, cameraman, production, research and writing assistant of documentary projects in Portugal.
Director: Ines Ponte
Production: Ines Ponte, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology - University of Manchester
Language of dialogues: Portuguese
Language of subtitles: English, Czech
Youngsters in developing countries all over the world dream of going to the West. They hope to earn money and get overseas experience to improve their positions at home. But once they arrive, they end up in low-status jobs and living crammed into small houses of other newly arrived migrants.
This film narrates the meeting with Sara Marielle Gaup and Lawra Somby, two young performers of joik (Sami chanting technique), born in the north and the south of Sápmi (the cultural nationhood of Sami people in North Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia). They have come together through a creative musical project called “Adjágas” which in Sami means “the state between sleep and awakening”. In this peculiar state one can unveil reality and tune into the most profound and original joiks. Adjágas, in this way bring the musical-lyrical practice of joik toward the international musical scene by performing with musicians of different horizons, and adapting its performances to the context of reception. The protagonists express different ways of life and concerns, relating also to what it means to be young artists with an indigenous background, having to work a way into the musical industry. It is also a film about what in the waves of the past is worth struggling for understanding, and how joik brings together everyday life, politics and spirituality and becomes a language healing the pain from the colonial history of the past.
