Lisbon, 1913. On Sunday afternoons, there is a symphonic concert. The audience leaves the theatre and comes across a camera filming them. Few manage to ignore it. Showing different attitudes, some try to emphasise their presence, others are more elusive. Based on close observation of people’s reactions to the unexpected (rare at the time) event of being filmed, this audiovisual essay reflects on the relationship between individuals and the film camera, reproducing the journey of discovering and analysing these archive images. The film reveals previously unseen moving images of Fernando Pessoa, as well as about 20 other well-known personalities of the time, including Amadeo de Sousa Cardoso, António Ferro, António Silva, Augusto Ferreira Gomes, Eduardo Viana, Ernesto Vieira, Florbela Espanca, Jorge Barradas and Stuart Carvalhais.
The idea for this film – and its title – came to me when I watched an old film at Cinemateca Digital, noticing that all the men looked like Fernando Pessoa, with his moustache and hat. So many Pessoas (people) – I thought – how can we tell them apart? It seemed like a real charade to me. I then decided that this would be the title of this investigation – Where is Pessoa? – regardless of whether I would find him or not. I wanted to zoom in to get a better look. And I began a long journey of analysing and discovering these archive images – done with the computer magnifying glass until the day I discovered him and believed it was him.
There are no absolute truths, anyone who has read Fernando Pessoa knows this perfectly. This essay film is also a speculative exercise. As in a game, spectators are led to participate in this search. It is a kind of interactive and collective inquiry, in which each person will form a different opinion. The film is a representation of my research, alongside the findings I was making, the doubts and hypotheses I was posing – an almost detective-like journey. Therefore, this is not a documentary, it is not fiction. Nor does it stop being one thing and the other. It’s a film that delves into itself.

Leonor Areal