A RTP está a fazer 60 anos e abriu parte dos seus arquivos. Entre outras coisas notáveis (como o telejornal na íntegra do dia 25 de Abril de 74), há lá imenso material fascinante sobre Macau. Por exemplo, o documentário "Macau 70", que já vi várias vezes. 
Filmado em 1971, o documentário evidencia a alteração brutal que se registou em Macau nos últimos 40 anos. As imagens mostram uma cidade que já não existe, mas que ainda consigo imaginar. Alguns aspectos que destaco: 
- A zona do Senado, muito pacata, quase sem carros e com muitas bicicletas
- O uso generalizado de riquexós para funções quotidianas (e não para turismo… aliás, há uma total ausência de turistas).
- Muitos chineses com vestes tradicionais, coisa que já pouco se vê.
- A pujante industria têxtil, com imagens de centenas de operários a trabalhar em fábricas.
- O Casino Lisboa acabado de abrir (em 1970) e a Ponte Nobre de Carvalho ainda em maqueta.
- As imagens do interior de um casino (penso que será o Hotel Central) que parecem ser do sec XIX, muito longe da sofisticação actual.
- O episódio do funeral, com típicos carros chineses engalanados (já não se vê nada parecido)
- A Taipa ainda sem a ponte, quase deserta.
- A rusticidade de Coloane, com os seus pescadores e putos de pé descalço.
- Uma certa hostilidade no olhar das pessoas que encaram o “cameraman” português. Apenas algumas crianças sorriem. Estávamos ainda em tempos de Revolução Cultural (como se nota pela efígie do Mao num edifício) e pouco depois do incidente que ficou conhecido como “1,2,3”.

Mais informação nos arquivos está disponível no Macau Daily Times. 

Grandes documentários sobre comida:

Jiro Dreams of Sushi:


Steak (R)evolution:

DOCUMENTÁRIOS muito cá de casa:


(do grande William Klein, disponível na íntegra no Youtube)

GRANDE documentário sobre o Steve Jobs, uma das personalidades mais influentes das últimas décadas e fazedor de futuro. Mas que, obviamente, não era o santo que pintaram quando morreu, longe disso:

CITIZENFOUR, um documentário a ver.

THE Peter Sellers Story:
The Peter Sellers Story Pt1 from Peter Lydon on Vimeo.

AMADEO de Souza Cardoso, talvez o artista português mais extraordinário do século passado. Um talento febril, visível não apenas nas pinturas, mas também nas cartas citadas neste documentário:
Documentário "Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso - At the Pace of Restlessness" (complete with English subtitles) from Panavideo on Vimeo.

UM grande documentário sobre Céline, autor de dois livros fabulosos (Viagem ao fim da noite, Morte a Crédito) a que se seguiram panfletos odiosos, racistas, repugnantes:


E nesta entrevista se vê como ele era frio, lúcido, dono de um pensamento original (como todos os bons escritores), mas cheio de ressentimentos e ódios:

THIS documentary by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere, tells the story of the Buddha's life. Hear insights into the ancient narrative by contemporary Buddhists, including Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin and the Dalai Lama. Join the conversation and learn more about meditation, the history of Buddhism, and how to incorporate the Buddha's teachings on compassion and mindfulness into daily life.

FABULOUS and newly released documentary about the '89 crackdown as seen by the foreign journalists in Beijing (reported by Mike Chinoy). 

	Dinosauria, we born like this into this as the chalk faces smile as Mrs. Death laughs as the elevators break as political landscapes dissolve as the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree as the oily fish spit out their oily prey as the sun is masked we are born like this into this into these carefully mad wars into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness into bars where people no longer speak to each other into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings born into this into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes born into this walking and living through this dying because of this muted because of this castrated debauched disinherited because of this fooled by this used by this pissed on by this made crazy and sick by this made violent made inhuman by this the heart is blackened the fingers reach for the throat the gun the knife the bomb the fingers reach toward an unresponsive god the fingers reach for the bottle the pill the powder we are born into this sorrowful deadliness we are born into a government 60 years in debt that soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt and the banks will burn money will be useless there will be open and unpunished murder in the streets it will be guns and roving mobs land will be useless food will become a diminishing return nuclear power will be taken over by the many explosions will continually shake the earth radiated robot men will stalk each other the rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground the sun will not be seen and it will always be night trees will die all vegetation will die radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men the sea will be poisoned the lakes and rivers will vanish rain will be the new gold the rotting bodies of men will stink in the dark wind the last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases and the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition the petering out of supplies the natural effect of general decay and there will be the most beautiful silence never heard born out of that. The sun still hidden there awaiting the next chapter.

(PRESS RELEASE) East Timor and Indonesian Action Network projects images from the Oscar-nominated documentary THE ACT OF KILLING on World Bank headquarters



February 20, 2014 – The Oscar-nominated documentary THE ACT OF KILLING was projected on the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C. Thursday in an action by the East Timor and Indonesian Action Network.  The group is calling on the World Bank to acknowledge its role in the 1965 military coup in Indonesia that lead to the massacre of an estimated one million civilians. The World Bank helped prop up the corrupt government of Suharto, the general who lead the coup and ordered the mass killings. The Bank sent the Suharto regime $30 billion in development aid over the course of three decades despite knowing $10 billion had been looted by the government.

“THE ACT OF KILLING powerfully highlights the ongoing impunity within Indonesia for the 1965 mass murders,” said John M. Miller of the East Timor and Indonesian Action Network. “Tonight we highlight the World Bank's support for the Suharto regime, which knowingly backed his corrupt government while his post-coup body count climbed. We urge the World Bank to acknowledge its role in Suharto's many crimes and to apologize and provide reparations to the survivors. Institutions like the World Bank must also be held accountable for their financial assistance to the murderers and decades of support as they continued to violate human rights.”

“The World Bank gave $30 billion dollars to a dictator who killed an estimated one million of his own citizens,” said THE ACT OF KILLING filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer. “The murderers spent years profiting off of their heinous crimes with the World Bank and other global financial institutions footing the bill.”

The projection on the World Bank Thursday launched the I HONOR campaign to remember the victims of the mass killings. Supporters are tweeting photos of themselves with signs that read “I HONOR VICTIM #...” to humanize each of the estimated one million victims of the coup and pressure the World Bank, and other international entities, to publicly acknowledge their complicity in the murders.

THE ACT OF KILLING, currently Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary feature, has been recognized as one of the best films of 2014. The film has received over 60 awards including Best Documentary from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). While the mass killings of 1965 are an open secret in Indonesia, the government has never acknowledged or apologized for sponsoring the murders. THE ACT OF KILLING, which has been shown in thousands of private screenings and is available free online throughout Indonesia, is empowering victims’ families to demand reparations from the government for the first time.

About East Timor and Indonesian Action Network
The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) advocates for democracy, justice and human rights for Timor-Leste, West Papua and Indonesia. In 2012, the government of the Democratic Republic Timor-Leste awarded ETAN the Order of Timor (Ordem Timor) for its role in the liberation of the country. More information about ETAN can be found at: http://www.etan.org

About THE ACT OF KILLING
In THE ACT OF KILLING, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and executive produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, the filmmakers expose a corrupt regime that celebrates death squad leaders as heroes.

When the Indonesian government was overthrown in 1965, small-time gangster Anwar Congo and his friends went from selling movie tickets on the black market to leading death squads in the mass murder of over a million opponents of the new military dictatorship. Anwar boasts of killing hundreds with his own hands, but he's enjoyed impunity ever since, and has been celebrated by the Indonesian government as a national hero. When approached to make a film about their role in the genocide, Anwar and his friends eagerly comply—but their idea of being in a movie is not to provide reflective testimony. Instead, they re-create their real-life killings as they dance their way through musical sequences, twist arms in film noir gangster scenes, and gallop across prairies as Western cowboys. Through this filmmaking process, the moral reality of the act of killing begins to haunt Anwar and his friends with varying degrees of acknowledgment, justification and denial. More information about the film can be found at http://actofkilling.com/.

SOBERBO, um pedaço de poesia
"Tom Waits, a Day in Vienna"  (uma noite velhinha, ainda muitos de nós éramos imberbes, 19 de Abril 1978, e já o Waits era uma lenda)

GRANDE doc sobre o Bruce Chatwin! Dirigido por Nicholas Shakespeare, o biógrafo de Chatwin, vai aos sítios por onde ele andou e entrevista aqueles que se tornaram em personagens dos livros dele :

FILME intimista e bem feito com impressões sobre a vida de expatriado (neste caso, em Seoul, mas podia ser noutro lado qualquer)

Episode 1: "The Expat Life" from Semipermanent on Vimeo.

GRANDE documentário da BBC sobre a Síria, que ajuda a compreender os motivos históricos que conduziram à guerra civil

UM grande doc sobre um homem com alma de poeta: