João Coroa Justino

A film director follows the autumnal trail of leaves that once graced the branches. A girl builds autumns as she wanders in a labyrinth of leaves. A man persists on watering the place the tree left behind. A woman who lived that autumn. All of them in a space called Jorge Listopad.

Photographer-turned-radiologist José Fontes revisits the now-inactive Miguel Bombarda psychiatric hospital where, for two weeks in 1968, he captured the complexities of everyday life in a series of harrowing photographs. As past and present converge – as old photographs meet present-day visual sketches, and as the silence of neglect clashes with deep-seated aural textures – a tentative cinematic patchwork blooms with the intent of capturing (or outright creating) fleeting visions of beauty in a most disquieting environment.

Photographer-turned-radiologist José Fontes revisits the now-inactive Miguel Bombarda psychiatric hospital where, for two weeks in 1968, he captured the complexities of everyday life in a series of harrowing photographs. As past and present converge – as old photographs meet present-day visual sketches, and as the silence of neglect clashes with deep-seated aural textures – a tentative cinematic patchwork blooms with the intent of capturing (or outright creating) fleeting visions of beauty in a most disquieting environment.