Sobre SPELL REEL

"The archival images in the film are digitized but, notably, not restored or preserved. Up to 40 years of neglect, decay and vinegar syndrome are foregrounded here; the rare colour footage is faded, while elsewhere figures appear and disappear amidst a wash of degradation. While this is likely an economic consideration, the presentation of the footage in this condition is also a political act, as it forces a disassociation between the archive and the presumed goal of preservation. As César notes in the ancillary publication Luta ca caba inda: time place matter voice 1967-2017 — a part oral history, part catalogue that annotates each of the individual reels digitized for the project — "the digitisation of the archive was a process of documenting our passage through that audiovisual matter."

The sensibilities of [Chris] Marker and César's mentor Harun Farocki are evident throughout SPELL REEL (...). Scenes of hands carefully manipulating film canisters and reels, or strips of film running gently through fingers, invoke Farocki's fastidious attention to minute gestures, his care for the delicate materiality of this medium that can preserve both images of the world and the inscriptions of war."

[Fonte: Artigo de Jesse Cumming, sobre SPELL REEL de Filipa César, na Cinema Scope, número 71 (Verão 2017).]