Lisboa, Rui's office,

12.1.16; 17.30h

Rui Simoes

was born in Lisbon in the 40’s and is a cinema director, something he did not imagine would happen in his life.

He defines his life, before the cinema came, as a troubled one: until 22 Rui lived in Lisbon, but then, to avoid the dictatorship and the colonial war, he decides to exile himself first in Spain, in Paris, and then in Bruxelles (1966) the city where he will stay until the liberation of Portugal from the dictatorial regime of Salazar, in 1974.

Rui starts to work very young, to be independent and have the key of his House.
When just 13 he brings golden bars to Lisbon jewelers and at 15 he starts to work for an American multinational producing yellow pages.
Falling in love with the idea of advertising, he starts his own agency and becomes the manager for the Portuguese band Shakes (a mix of references between Beatles and Rolling Stones).
He follows the band’s life until they play in good stages in Paris, but then he decides, because of the war, to remain in France and interrupt his collaboration with the Band.

In this moment Rui is already married with a dancer and in two years time the couple has two children, Laurent and Alexandre.
For the two young parents life becomes very hard and they do not manage to survive the difficulties connected with the exile and the distance from the family “house”; after three years the couple separates:the mother going back to Portugal with the children(women had not problem of exile)and Rui continuing living and working in Belgium.
Here he does every kind of job he can find: discotheque animator, metallurgic, restaurant worker, baby-sitter...until the moment he finds a job as cinema projectionist and combines it with the one he has in a greek restaurant: at this point he manages to eat, learn and see movies and enter a school connected with syndicalism, and social issues until a new change to a course of history and social science in the Free University of Brussel.

May' 68 is at the door and Rui embraces the revolution, supporting and personally connecting with groups (with no ties to any party) protesting the regime's ideology.
For this reason he travels in Europe to personally channel information: Lyon, Toulouse, Paris, Marseille, Milan, Rome…
Rui identifies with the ideas of the Situationist International, a cultural artistic movement of libertarian tendencies, diffused among France, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Denmark…Rui lives the revolution until the moment it comes to its end:
“Revolutions have always an end…otherwise they would be institutions…” he says.

Rui reinvents himself and starts working for a photography company.
He never really has a fixed House…he moves when it is needed and sometimes friends let him stay at their place.
In one of this borrowed shelters Rui receives the visit of a Portuguese friend coming to visit him, and to ask help for the preparation of an exam; it is for a cinema school.
They both go to the school and Rui, as a joke, submits the first exam and is invited to submit to all…15 days later he receives a letter and he is admitted to the course.

Documentary was not his priority but on the moment of the 25 of April Revolution in his country, he can finally go back to his parent's house convincing some school colleagues to follow him and to help him to film this historical moment.
“Deus Patria Autoridade“(1976)comes out and is his first successful documentary: 3 months at Cinema Universal.
Since then he has never stopped making documentaries; this is a vocation but also, he says, a half obligation as the institutions, the cinema-society, the juries, his colleagues, force him, somehow, to be a documentarist.
Societies don’t like to take risks, but yes to classify, organize and put things in order.

I ask Rui about his movie “Ruas da Amargura” a documentary portraying Lisbon streets and its homeless people (2008).
Rui took five years to find a way to finance his work. He feels a militant for social causes, he declares, interested in solving inequality and injustice with his work, or at least trying to do it.
His previous works: “Deus Patria Autoridade”, “O Bom Povo Portugues”, "Teatro dos sonhos", developed in Julio de Matos Hospital, and the perception of the strong economical crisis at the door are all elements that lead him to the realization of this project.
People living in the streets do not want and sometimes they are not able to accept the rules needed to the maintenance of a house.

Consequently they decide to make their body into their own house…and they do it as long as they manage to…

During the investigation and the filming process Rui spent a lot of time in the streets of his city, but nowadays he has a minimal relation with them and he satisfies his curiosity and the pleasure of discovery when he visits new places.
With tourism Lisbon is changing and beside some positive sides connected to it, the city is loosing part of its charm.

The new investigations for his work leads Rui to the ex-colonies, to the far away countries where his language is spoken; Rui is curious to know how he can be received there and how he can develop a new relationship with the inhabitants.
His new Project is called A CASA ( The House) and will explore the story of the house built by Salazar in 40/44 to host the children of colonialism coming to study in Portugal.
It is in this House that contrary to Salazar's expectations, a culture for liberation and a movement in support of anti-colonial war arose.

When I ask Rui about his actual House he admits to have a very good relationship with it, feeling always a sort of saudade as soon as he leaves it and a big pleasure to come back home.
Home is where you can organize your self, give yourself a structure, it can be warm or cold, but always under your control and usually a place not connected with pain…
It is the opposite he says of what happens during a trip.

And Security?
For Rui Security is very important as all his life is a continuous insecurity…and the capacity of paying rent is always a sort of conquest.

If he could choose?…he would like to buy a house in the countryside or next to the sea otherwise the bond and the obligation connected to this kind of step is something that he not sure he desires.
Probably a place on a small Alentejo hill could be the ideal one!

When he searches in the memories of his first house, he remembers his life in Lisbon, in front of the Cinema Imperio; a flat on a first floor.
He still can listen to the sound coming from the cinema, to the music of an Italian film with Silvana Mangano, and Italian songwriters as Marino Marini e Renato Carosone echoing around the city.
The backyards were sounding with the rooster singing and the traditional sound of the Electric entering the flat was mixing with the perfumes of the kitchen and of the liqueurs produced by his father.

Thinking about the sounds of today and comparing them it looks less poetic: the restaurant from the first floor, loud music from the bars until late into the night, buses and motorcycles and the ambulance sirens.

In the past the city sounded with a sort of sweetness now lost…it was poorer…but somehow softer…
 

...to listen is to imagine...

Thank you Rui for your time, your openness and all these incredible stories!

Good listening!

SPACE:

This interview recording took place sitting at Rui's desk, in his office, a corner of a bigger and multifunctional space, full of rooms and surprises, where more people work together.

Beside being located in the very center of the city, Rui' studio street is silent and the space inside does not accuse the sound of the traffic and busy life happening outside.