Visual artist Gabriel Abrantes premieres the film “The Seed of Evil” on Thursday, which is his first foray into horror, a “more democratic” genre that can be made with few resources, he told Lusa news agency.
“The Seed of Evil”, in 2023, was part of the Toronto (Canada) and MOTELx (Lisbon) festivals, arrives in Portuguese cinemas this week and has a promised release later this year in several countries in Europe, the United States, Latin America and Asia.
Produced by Artificial Humors, this is the first feature-length fiction film directed by Gabriel Abrantes alone, after he directed “Diamantino” (2018) with American Daniel Schmidt.
The film was shot in 2020 in Sintra and stars Carloto Cotta in the dual role of twins who meet again in Portugal after decades of forced separation, uncovering a macabre family secret involving their mother.
The cast also includes American actress Brigette Lundy-Paine and Portuguese actors Anabela Moreira, Alba Baptista, Rita Blanco and Beatriz Maia, among others, in secondary roles.
In an interview with Lusa, Gabriel Abrantes explains that it was the connection between horror and the cinema he has been making for almost two decades, mostly in the short film format, that led him to experiment with this genre.
“I really like fantastic, bizarre, surreal movies, and horror movies have all that in their DNA. A horror movie has supernatural things, fantastic things, ghosts, witchcraft and so on. That attracted me to the genre. On the other hand, it’s also a more democratic genre. Horror films with very few means can have a much wider reach,” he said.
“The Seed of Evil”, whose original title is “Amelia’s Children”, was made entirely with Portuguese production, with financial support from the Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual, and joins a short list of Portuguese horror feature films.
“In Portugal there’s little investment in it, but a lot of the cinema that’s made here is incredible, it’s authorial cinema, pure and hard, and it has its value. Perhaps there isn’t as much of this culture or there may be some contempt for a genre like horror cinema. I like to embrace those popular forms that are more despised or ‘snubbed’,” he said.
Gabriel Abrantes, born in the United States in 1984, is a multidisciplinary artist who has worked in film and visual arts. He has been exhibiting regularly since 2006, particularly in installation and video art.
In 2009, he won the EDP New Artists Award and the following year he won the Locarno prize for “A history of mutual respect”, co-directing with Daniel Schmidt. In 2018, “Diamantino” won the Critics’ Week Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
At a time when “The Seed of Evil” is premiering in Portugal, Gabriel Abrantes is working on several projects, including the production of four animated video art installations, with the participation of actress Brigette Lundy-Paine, for a group exhibition that will inaugurate the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s new Modern Art Center.
“They’re animations of ghosts arguing in a kind of post-apocalyptic, post-global warming landscape. And I’m working on several feature scripts, but it’s quite difficult. I really enjoy writing, but it’s the hardest part,” he said.
One of the features is a horror film and the other is for children, “about an Artificial Intelligence robot that wants to be an artist, wants to be a painter, but it’s illegal in this world of the movie; Artificial Intelligence is prevented from making art”.
