Catflaps
Director Ana Salvado, Tiago Matos
Countries Portugal
Duration 20 min
Synopsis
Two months' work separate the pruning of cork oaks from the packing of the vegetable coal. During that period of time, the hands of both men and women perform a chain of precise and differentiated tasks. Men operate heavy cutting machines, leaving to women the closer contact with the coal itself. It is a process of transformation carried out in the open, in a place defined by the smell and the intense smoke coming from the furnaces. The noise of the machinery is omnipresent in everyday working relations. The silence and the birds around complement this scenery heavily marked by contradictions and reminiscences of smog filled territories, as an image brought to us, untouched, from a distant industrial era.
Two months' work separate the pruning of cork oaks from the packing of the vegetable coal. During that period of time, the hands of both men and women perform a chain of precise and differentiated tasks. Men operate heavy cutting machines, leaving to women the closer contact with the coal itself. It is a process of transformation carried out in the open, in a place defined by the smell and the intense smoke coming from the furnaces. The noise of the machinery is omnipresent in everyday working relations. The silence and the birds around complement this scenery heavily marked by contradictions and reminiscences of smog filled territories, as an image brought to us, untouched, from a distant industrial era.