1894, the continuous persecutory delusions of the poet and painter Angelo de Lima lead to his hospitalization at the Hospital de Alienados do Conde de Ferreira, today Centro Hospitalar Conde de Ferreira. In 2014 a professional actor has to play the artist for a theatrical show. The desire to best build the character he will have to bring on stage drives him to spend two weeks in the psychiatric center. Slowly, slowly it enters its spaces, into the depths of a universe of lucidity and madness, stripping it of its outermost garments so as to capture its truest essence. He shares his guests’ routines, participates in hallway talks, smoke breaks, therapies, and coin counting for coffee. In this blanket of fog, made up of amazement, understanding, he curiously comes across a poem by Lima himself entitled Tédio and published in the Orpheu magazine. Poetry that bears the signs of psychotic disorder, but which will prove to be fundamental for outlining the figure of the artist with greater sincerity and fidelity.
At the end of the screening, Gaia Giuliani (Universitad de Coimbra) and Francesco Vacchiano (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) talk in English with the director Jorge Pelicano. Evening organized in collaboration with the Festival dei Matti Venezia, free admission subject to availability.
