ABOUT
Rui Simões was invited to direct a film approximately 6 minutes long for exhibition at the Portugal Pavilion of the Hannover 2000 Universal Exposition, under the general theme Humankind-Nature-Technology, a Filmes do Tejo production.
The film played on a loop on a 16m x 2.67m super-panoramic screen inside the Portugal Pavilion, and it is estimated that by the end of the Expo, it had been seen by approximately 3 million spectators.
The film acts as a large window looking out over the country: the land, the people, the marks of the territory, and its continental and Atlantic landscape diversity, but also the digital Portugal of education and training, and the contributions to international research projects, such as the glass chair and marine exploration robots present in the Pavilion.
The film integrates aerial images from across the country, adapted to this special format, and uses no words, relying exclusively on visual and sound language. The soundtrack is by Manuel Faria—a classically trained musician popularized by his career with the group Trovante.
The audiovisual project designer for the Portuguese Pavilion was the Belgian Johann Schelfout, who had previously collaborated on the Portugal Pavilion at Expo 98.
