News@FMUL invited Dr. António Pais de Lacerda*, an “expert” in films related to medicine, to contribute with some movie suggestions for its readers. In addition to being the founder and president of MedCine Film Festival (Cascais, 2009), this FMUL lecturer has developed and maintains an updated lists of this type of movies that is given to students in Module III-I, in the first year of the Integrated Master Degree in Medicine.

News@FMUL thanks him for his precious support to medical culture and the “seventh art”.

* Assistant Lecturer of the Subjects of Module III-I “Clinical Medicine – The Physician, the Person, and the Patient” and of Intensive Medicine at FMUL.

     “E Agora? Lembra-me” by Joaquim Pinto (2013) 

There are many things I cannot remember. I do not know why I have lost them in the depths of everything that would not be useful to me or nice to know about. Sometimes I think about those lost times and immediately many which my memory forces me to remember come to mind. It seems it is due to the latter that I find and situate myself in my world, as I try to understand myself through them and, thanks to them, I construct myself daily, explaining to myself the reasons why I move on towards a possible future.

So, it seems that I am somehow just bricks made of the memory of standardized experiences that I have meticulously chosen among many others in different vibrations of the neuronal microtubules that organize my consciousness, and placed (not always harmoniously) in a construction that is being constantly reshaped throughout my years of existence. This is how the memory I have of myself makes me aware of what determines my reality.

When I saw the movie by Joaquim Pinto “E agora? Lembra-me” (What now? Remind me), and as a result of having also experienced many of the moments in life that he remembers (by constructing and deconstructing) over twenty years, I simultaneously remembered another building (my own) erected in the same memory timespan.

It is quite true, Joaquim! It was good to remember every moment of those old years that each of us crystalized in our own way. But your life documentary told in the first person clearly highlights (besides reminding us, spectators, some moments of the history of those days) what was like experiencing youth when one dreams of big projects and challenges, and when pleasure and love were dominant. It was a time overshadowed by a virus that generated controversial social cleavages and great physical and psychological suffering.

One fully understands why this autobiographical documentary was ranked among the three best films of 2013 by Film Comment. The movie, which has not yet been distributed in the United States, was shown at the 51st New York Film Festival, and was awarded the Jury’s Special Prize at the 66th Locarno Film Festival. Later, it also won prizes at other festivals, and the international competition at the 11th edition of DocLisboa.

Joaquim Pinto knew only too well how to bring to the screen the emotion of living with the human immunodeficiency and hepatitis C viruses, the fears, anxieties and the organic manifestations of treatments. He did it bluntly, blending scientific knowledge with the interpretations of memory and the daily construction of his future with Nuno Leonel, his companion in dreams and struggle.

This intimate account, by measuring the time that time has and by travelling the memories of 20 years of disease, offers us the real story of someone who is able to convey through words, images and thoughts the reality experienced by many others who, in those very same days, also suffered and gradually departed. The movie is also a reminder and a tribute to all of them and their loved ones.

With “E Agora? Lembra-me”, Joaquim Pinto (1957), joins writers/filmmakers Cyril Collard (1957-1993), Derek Jarman (1942-1994) and Hervé Guibert (1955-1991), who also left us living testimonies of their memories-experiences of the mid 80s-90s decade, which was guided by ignorance, struggle, fear, and suffering.

António Pais de Lacerda

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