The work of Salomé Lamas aims to redefine non-fiction filmmaking. Her cubistic editing, subjective camera, and unassuming attitude are not interested in changing facts, not even in documenting them. Instead, her works push the spectator to create their own new thoughts and discourses. She stages a society where rules are replaced, and roles shift unexpectedly. By testing time, the surreal becomes real. The world is an overlooked scenario inhabited by the characters of Raúl Ruiz’s books and films, modern pirates and dreamers dealing with the philosophical curiosity and contradictions that layer Johan van der Keuken’s filmmaking. Lamas reclaims individual critical traits, many of which have been historically, politically, and artistically threatened—and she does so fearlessly. –M.S.
Two months after the U.S. premiere of THE TOWER (2015) at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York (“First Look” Festival), and just two days before her feature film ELDORADO XXI has its North American premiere at Lincoln Center and MoMA’s (“New Directors/New Films” series), we have the opportunity to experience a selection of Salomé Lamas’ earlier work at UnionDocs.
Salomé Lamas (Lisbon) studied cinema and fine arts both in Portugal and Amsterdam, and has exhibited her work widely both in the context of the art gallery and the film theater. Rather than conventionally dwelling in the periphery between cinema and the visual arts, fiction and documentary, she has made these languages her own, challenging the lines between genres and modes of exhibition. Her work has been awarded and showcased at NIMK Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, BAFICI, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Rome Film Festival, MNAC Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, DocLisboa, MoMA, Guggenheim Bilbao, Pacific Film Archive, Milano Film Festival, Harvard Film Archive, Museum of Moving Images NY, Fid Marseille, Cinéma du Réel, UCLA Hammer Museum, Jewish Museum NY, etc. Lamas has been awarded fellowships at CPH: LAB, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm, Yaddo, and MacDowell Colony.
Mónica Savirón (Madrid) studied Latin literature, art history, and journalism in Spain. She is an experimental filmmaker, writer, and curator whose work explores the cinematic possibilities of sound and avant-garde poetics. A Consulting Editor of the film journal La Furia Umana, her essays about avant-garde and artists’ cinema have been published internationally. As a programmer, she has organized shows at Microscope Gallery, Anthology Film Archives, and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, among others. Her films and videos have been exhibited at more than fifty major festivals around the world, including Artists’ Film and Moving Image Biennial in London; EXiS, Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul; Projections New York Film Festival; Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen; Edinburgh International Film Festival; ARKIPEL in Jakarta; MESSAGE TO MAN in Saint-Petersburg; and National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. 
