“In my images I always looked for something that feels disconnected from reality” – Teresa Freitas
In our second edition, director Sibila Lind portrays the photographer Teresa Freitas and her dreamy and colorful universe. Capturing the public’s attention primarily through the social network Instagram, the Lisbon-based photographer found her space in a very independent way. She grew on the platform until she gained the freedom that now allows her to travel internationally for her work.
Although her photographs show a very strong identity, there is lightness in her representations of beaches, streets, buildings, and flowers. It is these “moments of visual pleasure”, as the photographer herself identifies them, that Sibila Lind exalts and recreates in this second video portrait by Em.foco.
Talk with Sibila Lind
1) This video portrait of yours seemed to us to be in great harmony with Teresa’s work. You clearly captured her esthetics but there’s a lot of you in this work. What was the balance you found?
I think my work and Teresa’s work very well together and that ends up creating a very natural balance between us both. Throughout the whole process me and Teresa discussed, shared ideas, and almost always ended up in tune. The shots were inspired by her work – which I really appreciate, and most importantly, see myself in. Maybe it’s because we share a similar path since we attended the same high school and the Faculty of Fine Arts, or maybe because as people we are very similar. During filming, we kept sharing ideas and tastes and one of us always ended up saying “me too”. But of course, even though we have so much in common, we have different identities. The way the shots were constructed was a two-person job, but the editing I think says more about myself.
2) What do you most identify with in Teresa’s work?
With her esthetics and sensibility. We both like “clean” images, beautiful in their own right. Images that convey visual pleasure to the spectator and that are born from what we see. We both enjoy discovering the world, exposing elements, details that go unnoticed, but in Teresa’s case she ends up creating her own world. And I like that gamble between reality and fantasy: flowers blooming on the beach, pink plains, ocean waves on the bottom of a pool. The duality between what is and what could be. That is something that has always been with me too. When I was at the Faculty of Fine Arts I missed reality. Now, as a multimedia journalist, I look for the art in reality. The doubt that Teresa reveals by the end of the video – now no longer a doubt to her – I also live with. Am I a journalist? Director? Photographer? For now, I feel like I’m a bit of everything.
3) How was the environment during shooting? We know that you traveled several kilometers with Teresa in search of the ideal locations.
We were very effective! We had a two-day shoot in total. On the second day, we only shot on the beach, but on the first one we traveled all over. Cascais, Monsanto, Almada, and even an abandoned water park in Caparica, but when we got there we realized that the space had nothing to do with Teresa’s esthetics. It happens! Even though we had a script or the rough lines of one, the truth is that most of the shots were based on the location itself. At first, we did some online research through Google Maps, then on location, we observed and experimented. Teresa would also share ideas and I’d point my camera. The shots came around spontaneously. I think we both work in similar ways, very much intuition-based. I like having control over things, but also being surprised, especially by that feeling of seeing something for the first time. The gaze is different that way. Sometimes we may miss some details, but most of the time the opposite happens. If I have something already mapped out, a closed idea, I won’t look further. I won’t explore the potential the location has to offer at that moment: a reflection, a clear sky, the perfect lighting. Of course, all of these things are can be noticed and controlled by preparing and visiting the spot beforehand, but I like working in another way. I show up and showdown because in the end, the fact that it wasn’t planned is what makes it feel magical.
4) Color is perhaps the most important thing in Teresa’s work. How did you find in color correction, hues so similar to the ones she uses?
Well, the color correction is so similar to Teresa’s because she did it herself (laughs). After shooting we sat down side by side and watched the raw footage. The curiosity of seeing the images as they would appear on the video made us immediately want to transform the shots according to Teresa’s esthetics: the pastel hues, less contrast, and more brightness. Teresa already had previous experience (that’s what she does every day), she just started adjusting saturation, contrast, color balance, etc… and voilà!
5) Why was the choice of the split screen? Is it related to Teresa’s work, her identity?
The split screen was influenced by a video I saw at Nowness magazine. There’s a video that portrays a dancer using two simultaneous frames that really caught my attention. I thought about how that duplication of frames creates a dialog between shots and explores duplicity, something that is inherent to both my work and Teresa’s. A duplicity not so much on the subject of identity but of perception. I really like this saying I once read in a book that goes something like: “Two men look through the prison bars. One sees mud, the other, stars”. It has several different meanings, of course, but to me it says a lot about the way we see things. We can choose to see what we want.
Not only can we choose what we see, but we can give it meaning. When Teresa photographs a landscape she is already acknowledging its potential, seeing beyond the landscape itself. And that was something I also wanted to play with: a place with and without Teresa. In the beginning, I thought about having a frame with her colors and one without, but I realized it wasn’t going to work visually: it would be too confusing. So I decided to keep Teresa’s colors.
The second reason for using a split-screen approach was a matter of esthetics and, perhaps, also for a personal challenge. Having two shots made me think “double”. When I was shooting I had to simultaneously figure out what would that shot communicate with. It was more demanding in terms of filming and editing, but in the end, it makes total sense.
6) We noticed a big difference between the video portrait with and without sound design. How was that collaboration with Gil Amado? Did you come in with predetermined ideas or was that something that was discovered in post-production?
I had never worked with someone on sound post-production. I always had to do it on my own. Working with Gil was my first experience and I enjoyed it. He got the essence of the video portrait right away. Even when I came in with a good part of the sound defined, he managed to add so much to it. I had no solution for moments of silence, and he created several abstract sounds that worked very well. And in some of those moments, there’s a game between what we see and hear.
The two shots where Teresa’s arm is the subject are a great example of that: when her arm is undulating over a blue wall, we hear the sea; after that, when it rises in front of a red wall, we hear wood bending, leaves on the wind, as if the arm was a branch of a tree that is rising. I feel like I learned a lot about the importance of sound in a short video from watching Gil work. Especially about how much it can influence a narrative. In the end, I only regretted not having an original song by him, but there was no time. Maybe next time, who knows.
7) In addition to being a director, you’re also a journalist. And your work as a journalist doesn’t seem disconnected from your audiovisual work. Do you feel your experience as a journalist carries over to this kind of work?
Always. My journalist side is always there, whether I like it or not. Not so much in the informative, factual side of things, but the documental aspect. I always was more interested in the “real” side of things, the hidden story. When I was young and I was asked to draw something abstract, I simply couldn’t: it always had to have a more illustrative side: a moon, a sun, a flower. And that still stands today. Of course, for this video, I had to “disconnect” slightly from the pure documentary side. I kept some of that side on Teresa’s speech: a story with a beginning, middle, and end. But as far as the footage goes, even though they mirror her work (for example, when we see her photographing through Lisbon’s streets), they are mostly esthetic.
8) What kind of voice are you looking for as a director?
It’s easier for me to create or have a gaze rather than a “voice”. I’m still not sure what voice I want to have but I know I want to give others voice, because it’s often in others’ stories that we see ourselves, that we get inspired, that we are taught to understand the world that surrounds us. At least that’s what it’s like for me. I have the privilege as a journalist to constantly meet different people and hear their stories. An image by itself has a lot to say, but to truly understand it I need to hear the story it has to tell.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Teresa Freitas
portrayed artist
Teresa Freitas was born in 1990 in bright and sunny Lisbon, where she still lives, but she will take any opportunity to travel. Full-time photographer and content creator for brands with an artistic and creative approach that focuses on still life, stop motion and other animation techniques. She likes to play with familiar motifs and then subvert them into something less tangible and more cinematic.
Sibila Lind
director
“The first one to be born is going to be named Sibila”, said her mother, pregnant with twins, while closing the book of Augustina Bessa-Luís, Sibila. And so it was. Drawing and painting were her first passion, but after finishing the media art course, in the Faculty of Fine Arts, she was more interested in film and photography. Currently, Sibila Lind is a multimedia journalist and a visual maker, working in Luxembourg. She is interested in human rights, gender equality issues, cultural projects and unknown stories. Always in the line between journalism and art, which she believes, time by time, is becoming thinner.