The Valongo Festival was just born (its first edition was October 12-16), but it already has ambitions. The “Festival International da Imagem” (international festival of the image) is meant, according to the words of its creator Iatã Cannabrava, to allow, over the long term, for the creation of a university of cinema in Valongo, and also to become an event that has the same magnitude as other major international festivals.
For five days, the festival occupied the historic neighborhood in the city of Santos’ port area, in the state of São Paulo. Several places in the Valongo neighborhood, from ship containers to the dilapidated walls of colonial buildings, gave space to exhibitions and events dedicated to photography . Images as varied as those of Cassio Vasconcellos vessels (which almost falls under painting since so much of the photography aesthetic vanishes under the photographer’s process),pictures underlined with hashtags published from Federico Ríos Escobar’s Instagram account, posters reproducing Marcelo Brodsky’s interventions on the archived images of the 1968 protests around the world, and even an intermingling of photographs and pages from Juan Valbuena’s travel journals…
But even more than exhibitions, the Valongo Festival dedicated a consistent space to interchanges based around the image. Workshops and round tables were abundant each day, with major names in photography and image specialists from around the world.
Photography books were equally at the heart of the event. They were shown in a bookstore, a round table that was entirely dedicated to them, and among the exhibitions, strolling from the pages of a Roy DeCarava book to a projection of the eminent book Amazônia by Claudia Andujar and George Leary Love. The festival also was part of the launch of the lastest issue of Zum magazine, a contemporary photography magazine iconic in Brazil today.
This first edition of the festival, whose form is accepted as experimental, according to the words of the director, proved to be promising. As it is definitely pleasant to discover images to the rhythm of boat whistles coming from vessels entering or leaving the port, we wish continued success to images in the Port of Santos!
Elsa Leydier
