“Savannah and the Mountain” premieres on Saturday
The long-running fight of the community of Covas do Barroso against plans for new lithium mines in the region arrives this week at the Cannes Film Festival in southern France.
Presented as a fictional story, A Savana e a Montanha (Savannah and the Mountain) it focuses on a community that decides to unite to expel a foreign company that wants to bring a lithium mine to their village.
British company Savannah Resources has been trying to get the green-light for an open put lithium mine in Covas do Barroso since 2018. And locals, backed by the municipality, have been fighting that intention ever since.
Filmmaker Paulo Carneiro used artistic licence in his portrayal, staging the action in a fictitious Wild West.
As Lusa explains, “the population mobilises with the weapons at their disposal – tractors, hoes, ox carts, protest songs – against an invisible and distant enemy: the foreign company and the government that authorised the mining project.
“This ‘social western’ is a reenactment of the real struggle against Savannah Resources to mine in a region that is one of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) as classified by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
“In recent years, demonstrations, parades and camps have been held in Covas do Barroso to protest against this mine”, which opponents consider will harm the region on multiple levels, not least in its underground supplies of water – the lifeblood of agriculture.
Carneiro, who lives in Lisbon but knows the area, told Lusa how he became a convert to the struggle.
He began by making “a kind of documentary” but ended up involving the inhabitants in the creation of ‘a fiction’ so that they could realise what they had not yet managed to do in reality – stop the project altogether.
“There’s a moment when I say, “let’s make a film, all of us together; I’m going to be here, this isn’t going to be easy, but do you want it to happen? (…) From that moment on you can’t go back: once you enter the struggle you can’t leave it.
“And we use cinema as a weapon in this struggle.”
The film features some of the many people who have been speaking out against the project.
Carneiro admits he does not know what impact the film will have when it premieres this Saturday, but t least it will give the fight more visibility – visibility beyond Portugal – and, with luck, make people talk about what is going on.
“A Savana e a Montanha” was made by four people over several months between 2020 and 2023, without funding from Portugal’s State Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual (ICA), but with the support of Boticas municipality (vehemently opposed to the mining project) and the Uruguayan Film and Audiovisual Agency, the film’s co-producer.
Considering Paulo Carneiro applied “several times” for ICA funding – never being successful – he called for a reflection on Portuguese cinema, and how it is supported/ encouraged..
A Savana e A Montanha will premiere at the Filmmakers Fortnight in Cannes – where producers will seek contacts for international distribution. There will also be screenings in Portugal, initially in Covas do Barroso. No dates for these screenings have yet been announced.
The Filmmakers’ Fortnight, which runs from 15 to 25 May, is a non-competitive independent programme that runs parallel to the Cannes Film Festival and is organised by the Society of Film Directors.
The programme also includes two Portuguese short films “Quando a terra foge” (When the land flees) by Frederico Lobo, also shot in Trás-os-Montes, and “O jardim em movimento” (The garden in movement) by director and visual artist Inês Lima.
There is also a co-production with Portugal in the film “Algo viejo, algo nuevo, algo prestado” (Something old, something new, something borrowed), by Argentinian director Hermán Rosselli, co-produced by Ico Costa’s Oublaum Filmes.
In Critics’ Week, another of the festival’s parallel sections, is the film “My sensations are all I have to offer” (original title “As minhas sensações são tudo o que tenho para oferecer“) by Isadora Neves Marques.
Cannes Film Festival, which starts tomorrow, includes the feature film “Grand Tour” by Miguel Gomes, and short film “Mau por um momento” (Bad for a moment) by Daniel Soares in its main programme.
Source material: LUSA
