Heaven's Mirror

a Joshua Dylan Mellars film HEAVEN’S MIRROR A PORTUGUESE VOYAGE

WORLD PREMIERE SANTA ROSA INTERNATIONAL WINE COUNTRY FILM FESTIVAL 2011

ABUELA LUNA PICTURES PRESENTS “HEAVEN’S MIRROR: A PORTUGUESE VOYAGE” ANA MOURA CAMANÉ MAFALDA ARNAUTH CARLOS DO CARMO KATIA GUERREIRO JOANA AMENDOEIRA TEREZA TAROUCA CELESTE RODRIGUES JORGE FERNANDO CARLOS GONÇALVES HELDER MOUTINHO CO-PRODUCERS ALEXANDER FREEMON ISSAC PAZHO JOSHUA SCHNEYER ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ROBERT ELLEMAN EXECUTIVE PRODUCER MOJIB AIMAQ WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY JOSHUA DYLAN MELLARS www.HeavensMirrorMovie.com ABUELA LUNA PICTURES Presents HEAVEN’S MIRROR

A PORTUGUESE VOYAGE DIRECTED BY JOSHUA DYLAN MELLARS

Logline: Heaven’s Mirror embarks on a musical odyssey to plumb the meaning of saudade in Portuguese fado music; but as the ﬁlmmaker travels from Lisbon to Goa, from California to New England, he ﬁnds that his inner quest mirrors the salient fado themes: the ephemerality of life, laments of lost loves and longings for other times and other places.!!

World Premiere

A PORTUGUESE VOYAGE DIRECTED BY JOSHUA DYLAN MELLARS

Synopsis (172 words) Heaven's Mirror is filmmaker Joshua Dylan Mellars' mystically wild and lushly romantic fado journey: the filmmaker travels from the ironwork balconies and narrow cobbled streets of Lisbon's Alfama to the cool bungalow porches of India’s Goa, from the salt sprayed clapboard of New England's former whaling ports to the dusty bullrings of Central California in search of the meaning of saudade, the essence of fado. Like Proust, fado music tries to recover lost times, ephemeral feelings, time moved on, laments of what could have been if only.... In Heaven's Mirror, Mellars travels a geographical odyssey and an inner quest, mixing love with desire, memory with longing. Mim- icking the Portuguese voyages of old, the filmmaker also sails an inner sea to learn from those who have lived and sung life in fado--for somewhere, some- how, sometime, we all must travel fado's terrain. Heaven’s Mirror features top fado performers Ana Moura, Camané, Mafalda Arnauth, Carlos do Carmo, Helder Moutinho, Joana Amendoeira, Katia Guerreiro, Carlos Gonçalves, Celeste Rodrigues, Jorge Fernando and Tereza Tarouca.

P.O. Box 29322 San Francisco CA 94129, USA • telephone: (1) 707.321.1600 • [email protected] www.heavensmirrormovie.com • www.abuelaluna.com • www.facebook.com/HeavensMirrorMovie Long Synopsis (369 words) Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage is director Joshua Dylan Mellars' love song to fado music and a Chatwinesque travelogue, odyssey, and musical ad- venture that becomes the ﬁlmmaker's encounter with destiny and desire, memory and regret.

Entering deep into the spell of this hauntingly beautiful Portuguese folk music and its salient emotion--longing (saudade), Heaven’s Mirror travels around the world to tell the story of this two centuries old music whose inﬂu- ences were ﬁrst carried by sailors to the port of Lisbon from Africa, Brazil and the Arab world. Heaven’s Mirror sets sail from the Portuguese immi- grant enclaves of California to New England's former whaling ports, then di- rects its course to Lisbon’s candle-lit fado houses and Indian Goa's steamy, pastel bungalows. Lisbon shimmers exotic and mysterious above the Tagus; the fado music of the past becomes palpable: the ghost of legendary fadista Amália Rodrigues seems to shelter in the doorways of the narrow and cobbled streets.

In Heaven’s Mirror, the best new fadistas talk about Amália, life, longing, love, and sing sultry, evocative Portuguese fado to illustrate their point: Ana Moura, ﬁlmed singing in an intimate cabaret setting, has sung “No Expecta- tions” on the big stage with the Rolling Stones; Mafalda Arnauth, ﬁlmed at Sintra’s windswept Moorish castle and on the rugged coastline which inspires her own fados, has also recorded Astor Piazzolla’s Argentine tangos and Tom

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

3 Jobim’s Brazilian bossa novas; Camané, who can sing with bossa nova and jazz inﬂections, shows the old fado neighborhood of the Alfama and then guides the ﬁlmmaker to a bohemian fado house and an impromptu fado ses- sion.

As the filmmaker travels, Portuguese saudade expands through the medium of fado, a paper flower unfolding in water; the past becomes an enigma, the present an illusion, the future a dream. Heaven’s Mirror follows the course of the Portuguese voyages of old, but the filmmaker also sails an inner sea to learn from those who have lived and sung life in fado--for somewhere, some- how, sometime, we all must travel fado’s terrain.

Heaven’s Mirror features top fado performers Ana Moura, Camané, Mafalda Arnauth, Carlos do Carmo, Helder Moutinho, Joana Amendoeira, Katia Guer- reiro, Carlos Gonçalves, Celeste Rodrigues, Jorge Fernando and Tereza Ta- rouca.

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4 ABUELA LUNA PICTURES Presents HEAVEN’S MIRROR

A PORTUGUESE VOYAGE Director Bio

Joshua Dylan Mellars is the director and producer of Heaven’s Mirror: A Portu- guese Voyage (2011), Play Like a Lion: The Legacy of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan (2011), and Tango Illusions (2005)--a film trilogy which travels the emotional terrain of the world’s richest traditional music.! After graduating from Brown Univer- sity, Joshua worked!as a news correspondent in South America: filing stories for Bridge News, UPI, the BBC and NPR. He reported the coming to power of Hugo Chavez in Caracas, the turmoil of political and economic meltdown in Buenos Ai- res (his film Tango Illusions is a mix of Argentine tango and politics), the accession to the Brazilian presidency of!left leaning Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the cele- bration of the World Cup championship in Rio de Janeiro. Concurrent to his political and oil reporting, Mellars!reported classical music events in South America to Andante. After returning to the United States, Mr. Mellars began work on his film trilogy. Tango Illusions screened at film festivals in the US and Canada, winning the “Best Cine Latino” prize at the Napa-Sonoma Wine Country Film Festival and the “People’s Choice” award at the Bay Street Film Festival in Canada. Play Like a Lion is an Official Selection at California’s prestigious Mill Valley Film Festival, Berlin’s Globians Doc Fest, and the Bay Street Film Festival. Heaven's Mirror will make its World Premiere at California’s Santa Rosa International Film Festival.

A PORTUGUESE VOYAGE DIRECTED BY JOSHUA DYLAN MELLARS

Director’s Statement

In 1997, while studying in Madrid, long before any thought of making Heaven’s Mirror, my ﬁrst love affair came to an end. Feeling a bit down and with a week free, I bought a ticket for an early morning train bound for Portugal. When I arrived in Lisbon, the late afternoon sun lit up the red-tiled rooftops, washing hung from the balconies and colorful boats bobbed on the Tagus. The beauty of the city was such that, arriving there, I felt I had gone through a hidden door, discovered my own personal Xanadu.

That evening, as the sun plunged into the Atlantic, I descended a flight of stairs from my hotel, hungry for a good meal, thirsty for a glass of vinho verde. On an Alfama street, I found a half submerged, candle lit restaurant, and sat down alone at a table by the win- dow. Later, as I finished my fish soup, pulling on my second glass of wine, two musicians appeared carrying their own chairs and guitars accompanied by a woman dressed in green satin, a black shawl across her shoulders, a large red ring on her finger.

P.O. Box 29322 San Francisco CA 94129, USA • telephone: (1) 707.321.1600 • [email protected] www.heavensmirrormovie.com • www.abuelaluna.com • www.facebook.com/HeavensMirrorMovie As the musicians began to play, the singer to sing, I was mesmerized by the mood and the sound. I could make out from the style of the delivery, and the minor key of the song that it was a woman’s lament for a long lost love. Soon the music, the approach of the evening, the vinho verde, the musicians, the singer, the shawl, and my love-affair-just-ended combined to work their magic.

But what was is it that propelled me into fado’s orbit? Was it fado’s feeling of lost things. Of time having moved on. Its lamentation of what could have been if only.... Or was it just “that sound.” I left Portugal with a feeling, and that feeling was cathartic. Fado, like the blues, like ﬂamenco is a music that says, “This has hap- pened to me and I’m telling you about it and I’m ﬁghting it to a certain extent. But at least I’m addressing it and making it verbal and public. And you are going to have to deal with these feelings too.”

I knew then that I wanted to capture that elusive fado feeling, to show its mystery and to take my audience on a journey into the emotional life of Portugal and its music. For sooner or later we all travel fado’s terrain.

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7 ABUELA LUNA PICTURES Presents HEAVEN’S MIRROR

A PORTUGUESE VOYAGE DIRECTED BY JOSHUA DYLAN MELLARS

CAST BIOS Ana Moura Fadista Ana Moura was born in 1979 in San- tarem, Portugal which is located on the Tagus River just north of Lisbon in the center of Por- tugal’s heartland. Ana explains, “I’ve been singing fado since I was little…my parents sang well…we all could sing.” She sang at home and at family gatherings; then, in her teens, she sang rock and pop. One night, she sang at a fado house and found the audience most receptive.! Then fadista Maria da Fé invited her to sing at her fado house, where Ana learned her trade from the best singers. Ana’s debut album in 2003 met with wide public ac- ceptance. Invited by sax player Tim Ries, she participated in the Rolling Stones Project, has sung with fado legends Beatriz da Conceição and Maria da Fé and is a favorite fadista for both Mick Jagger and Prince—Moura!sang “No Expectations” on stage with Mick Jagger. !The youngest fadista to be nominated for the Dutch Edison Award,!the fadista received the prize for Best Performer by the Foundation Amália Rodrigues. Her album Para Alem da Saudade was in the top 30 Portuguese albums for 120 weeks; she was nominated for a Portuguese Golden Globe in 2008. Her album, Leva-me aos Fa- dos, has gone platinum in the top ten of best selling albums in Portugal. !Ms. Moura now has an international following as she performs at the world’s premiere concert halls including The Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, The Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Jazz Festival.

P.O. Box 29322 San Francisco CA 94129, USA • telephone: (1) 707.321.1600 • [email protected] www.heavensmirrormovie.com • www.abuelaluna.com • www.facebook.com/HeavensMirrorMovie Camané As a child, international fado star Camané discovered his parents record collection which included records by all the fado names of the day: Amália Rodrigues, Fernando Maurício, Maria Teresa de Noronha, Alfredo Marce- neiro and Carlos do Carmo. He has been enamored with fado ever since. His career was launched when he won the Grande Noite do Fado in 1979. The singer then served an apprenticeship in all of the most prestigious fado houses and then was cast in a variety of musical productions directed by the prominent Portuguese director Filipe La Fera--among these were “Big Night,” “Damn Cocaine,” and “Cabaret.” Throughout his career, he has remained true to the spirit of fado, while innovating within the form: backed by the traditional bass, viola and Portuguese guitar, Camané injects traces of bossa nova and jazz into his phrasing as he sings fado with great emotional power. For a number of years, Camané was half of a wonderful singing duo with producer Jose Maria Branco. He won the 2005 Amália Rodrigues Prize and is a 2009 Portuguese Golden Globe winner. Camané has had a string of best selling albums beginning with A Night of Fado in 1995, including This Thing of Soul in 2000, The Art of Ca- mané: Prince of Fado in 2004, Live in S. Luiz in 2006 and Sempre de Mim in 2008, and Do Amor e Dos Dias in 2010. The international star still occasion- ally returns to the fado houses where his inspiration was born.

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9 Celeste Rodrigues Celeste Rodrigues has had a long and fruitful career as a fado singer which began in 1951. She has appeared in the premiere halls of Europe, performs on Portuguese radio and TV and also in England, Africa, Brazil and the US. Celeste has had fado hits with “Fado Celeste” and “Lenda das Algas” but has recorded rarely, preferring the intimacy of the fado houses and live performances to the sterility of the recording studio. Born in Fundão, near the Estrela Mountains in central Portugal in 1923, she came to Lisbon when she was 5 years old. She remained close to her sister, fado legend Amália Rodrigues, throughout their careers, but chose to sing her own repertoire and to sing Fado Castiço rather than the more modern style chosen by her sister. Her best work was with the songs written by Varela Silva and Santos Moreira, us- ing a less forceful, more subdued but subtle approach in parsing the intrica- cies of the emotional terrain that is fado. Tereza Tarouca Throughout her long and prestigious career, Grand Fadista Tereza Tarouca has sung and worked with the most talented and prestigious writers, poets, and songwriters including D. Antonio de Bragança, João de Noronha, Alfredo Joiner, Pedro Homem de Mello, and Maria Manuel Cid and she has performed on exquisite stages around the world. Teresa de Jesus Pinto Coelho da Silva Telles who borrowed an old family nickname for her stage name,!Tereza Tarouca is the granddaughter of the Counts of Tarouca,!a family connected with music, and is a cousin of Frei Hermano da Câmara and also related to Maria Teresa de Noronha.! Tereza started singing at charity performances at the age of 11 as a child prodigy and debuted singing fado at the age of 13 at the Hall of Fire at Orés. In 1958, she received the Oscar of the Press, signing a recording contract with RCA in 1962. Ms. Tarouca celebrated 33 years of performing at a retrospective show at the Tivoli Theatre. She has now become a Grand Dame of fado, respected for her taste and wisdom as much as for her emotional musical artistry.

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10 Mafalda Arnauth When fado singer Mafalda Arnauth's ﬁrst album won the prize for “Best Up- coming Voice” by the weekly magazine Blitz in 1999, it signaled a resur- gence of interest in fado by a new generation. With its release, Mafalda helped to resuscitate the venerable Portuguese music style, coupling her crys- talline purity of tone and emotion with an honesty of composition which is unmatched in the new fadistas.! She now has amassed an inspired collection of songs which plumbs to the core of our most basic human emotions.! Born October 4, 1974, Mafalda Ar- nauth's career began in 1995 when she was invited by João Braga to participate in a concert at S. Luiz Theater.! What started out to be a single fado experience became a way of life. Steeped in the tradition, but always intrepid, Ms. Arnauth never fears to go beyond the cape of fado into cabaret songs, tango and other genres with deﬁnite jazz phrasing, while bringing a new sophistication to the Portuguese folk idiom. With her self produced album Encantamento, followed by the albums Talvez se Chame Saudade, Diario and now Fadas, the songwriter “left fatality, disgrace and nostalgia behind...to feed hope on sadness.” Malfalda Arnauth is indeed a multi-talented, multi-dimensional songwriter and singer for the new age who is forever expanding her musical world but who always remembers the way back to her musical home--fado.

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11 Katia Guerreiro Fadista Katia Guerreiro sings bittersweet songs with pure, simple and elegant tones with the belief that “when poetry and fado come together, singing is born.” Not long after Katia Guerreiro was born on February 23, 1976 in South Af- rica, her family returned to the island of S. Miguel in the Azores. At 15, Ka- tia played a guitar-like instrument with a local folk band. After graduating from high school, she traveled to Lisbon to attend medical school, graduating as a doctor in 2000, but she also spent time during her academic years singing for a rock band called “Os Charruas.” In 2000, Katia began her fado career on stage in a tribute to Amália Rodrigues in Lisboa and was an instant audience favorite. She has sung at the premiere international concert halls including Concert Hall in Bern Switzerland, Opera De Lyon in France, participated in the Rencontres pour l’Europe de la Culture at the Comedie Francaise in Paris by invitation of the French Minister of Culture and was nominated as a member of the European Cultural Parliament. Katia has performed on the most important stages of the world including Teatro de S. Luiz,!Teatro Camões, Teatro National de São Carlos, Sala Luz De Gas in Barcelona, Casa de Americas in Madrid, Theatre Trianon in Paris,!Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Cathedral de Reims in France, Cathedral de Amiens in France, and the Saporo Symphony Hall in Japan. Katia has likewise collaborated with a wide range of international orchestras and musical artists from Portugal to China to Brazil. In 2010, Katia received the Best Performer of Fado Award from the Amália Rodrigues Foundation.

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

12 Helder Moutinho Born in Oeiras, Portugal in 1969, where the Tagus meets the Atlantic Ocean, Helder Moutinho, one of the few male fado singers, is a highly regarded performer throughout Europe. Known for his warm, powerful voice and depth of emotion, he is not only a world class singer and interpreter of fados, but also a songwriter, manager, agent and music editor. He began singing only to friends, then, desir- ing to share his voice and soul with a wider public, he sang in fado houses; then he began to premiere his own songs with his first album Sete Fados e Alguns Cantos which was enthusiastically received by critics and the public. He won the Amália Rodrigues Award for Best Album in 2004 with his album Luz de Lisboa. He wrote of Lisbon, city of passions, seven hills, vinho verde, and poetry. He has written for Mafalda Arnauth and Joana Amendoeira among others; he has his own record label HM and edits albums for the likes of Jorge Fernando, Argentina Santos, Joana Amendoeira and other World Music performers. He finds himself on a constant quest to find “where fado came from, where it has been and (most importantly) where it is going.” Jorge Fernando Jorge Fernando is a multi-talented fado songwriter, performer, guitar player, and producer born on March 8, 1957. Growing up in a poor Lisbon neighborhood, Jorge began singing as a child and became versed in jazz and pop in addition to fado music. At the age of sixteen, he worked with the “King of Fado,” Fernando Maurício and was invited to play guitar behind fado legend Amália Rodrigues at the age of 19. He subsequently wrote songs and produced for Amália. Five years after Amália's death, he produced the seminal A Tribute to Amália Rodrigues. Today he is one of the most performed songwriters in fado and has written for and produced for Ana Moura, Mariza and Fernando Maurício. Among his many fado compositions are “Chuva,” “Os

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13 Buzios,” and “Goodnight Loneliness.” His 2009 album Vida brings the multi- talented fadista to center stage with the help of young fadista Fabia Rebordão. Joana Amendoeira When Joana Amendoeira brings alive the words of the poets, past or present, her voice can evoke the murmur of a prayer, the plaintive cry of longing and anguish or the sheer joy of being alive. Born in Santarem on Sept 30, 1982, Joana is a star of the “New Generation” of fado. At the age of 13 she won the First Prize for Juvenile Interpretation at Porto's Great Night of Fado and in 1998 she went abroad for the ﬁrst time to sing in Budapest Hungary's Days of Portu- gal. The youngest fado singer to record an album (Olhos Garotos), in 2000 Joana began a long association with Clube de Fado, one of the most prestigious fado houses in Lisbon. In 2003, the young fadista was asked to participate in a tribute album to fado legend Carlos do Carmo (The New Man in Town), with Ma- riza, Camané and the other fado elite. Critics applauded her second album Aquela Rua, on which she showed a new attitude toward fado, while remaining true to the venerable music's traditions. She has performed at many of the premiere venues of Europe including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Teatrum Millenaris Park in Budapest, and the Royal Opera House in London; she recorded a live album at the Teatro Municipal São Luiz in 2005. At the age of 27, Joana released her seventh album, Sétimo!Fado, which is comprised of cello, piano and accordion arrangements of traditional fado. Ms. Amendoeira produced this, her latest album, through her own company Nosso Fado, an organization founded to preserve traditional Portuguese culture.

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14 Carlos Gonçalves Carlos Gonçalves was born in 1938 in Beja (Alentejo), Portugal. He fell in love with the Portuguese guitar at the age of 15 listening to radio programs, especially those of guitarist Jose Nunez.! Carlos began working at Adega de Anita in 1957 and later played at Lobos do Mar.!!While working at the elite fado houses, he accompanied the famous fadistas:! Alfredo Marceneiro, Maria Teresa de Noronha, Argentina Santos, Fernando Farinha, Lucília do Carmo, and Beatriz da Conceição. In 1968, he began a 31 year association with Amália Rodrigues, accompanying her in concert halls and on television shows throughout the world. Mr Gonçalves composed the music to comple- ment the poetry written by Amália, especially noted on the albums Lagrima and Gostava de Ser Quem Era. Today he continues to compose, work as a soloist and accompanist for the best fado singers. His unpublished compositions include “Mar de Amália,” a tribute to Amália Rodrigues, with lyrics by Tiago Torres da Silva.!!Critics applaud his virtuoso playing explaining that he can make the Portuguese guitar both cry and laugh with his complete mastery of the instrument.!!!

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15 Carlos do Carmo International fado star Carlos do Carmo has had a wide ranging impact on the art of fado. Born in 1939 in Mouraria, Lisbon's old Moorish section, he is the son of Lucília do Carmo, one of the most famous fadistas of the 20th century--his mother owned and operated the Faia fado house in Lisbon for many years. As a youth, Carlos studied hotel management in Switzerland, but returned to help his mother run the family fado house. Carlos turned pro- fessional after being encouraged by friends and fado house customers who heard him sing. Mr. do Carmo helped to open fado to jazz, bossa nova, French music, Jacques Brel, Frank Sinatra style phrasing, jazz like chord progressions, orchestral arrangements, and wider use of new lyrics by contemporary poets and songwriters. He experienced great popularity in the 1970's. Do Carmo won the Portuguese Song Contest with the song “Uma ﬂor de verde pinho” in 1976. Later, while continuing to pursue his own career, the fado singer helped to nurture the careers of fadistas like Camané and Mariza and to foster the spread of Portuguese culture. Many of his albums have reached platinum and gold status and Mr. do Carmo has performed at the premiere music venues of the world including Royal Albert Hall, Paris Olympia, and Carnegie Hall. Honored by the Portuguese government with a Commander of the Order of Prince Henry, Carlos do Carmo continues to appear at the world's elite music venues and to record new albums--his latest is Fado Maestro.

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16 ABUELA LUNA PICTURES Presents HEAVEN’S MIRROR

A PORTUGUESE VOYAGE DIRECTED BY JOSHUA DYLAN MELLARS

Production Notes When production on Heaven's Mirror was drawing to a close, ﬁlmmaker Joshua Dylan Mellars said, “I feel that with the completion of Heaven's Mir- ror I'm paying back, in a small way, the immense trust, kindness and support that the Portuguese people in Providence, California, Portugal and Goa lav- ished on me and the ﬁlm.”

So what was it that brought Joshua Dylan Mellars to film a documentary on fado music and its characteristic emotion, saudade or longing? When attend- ing Brown University, the filmmaker came into contact with the Portuguese community of Fox Point in Providence, which was situated close to where he lived. Mellars was first exposed to fado when visiting Lisbon from Madrid where he was studying for a year abroad. Later, while living in Copacabana, the filmmaker thought of doing a film on the "saudade" expressed by the Por- tuguese immigrants living in his neighborhood.

“In 2005, after ﬁnishing my documentary on tango, a dance which is a win- dow into the soul of the Argentine people, I decided I might do a similar ﬁlm

P.O. Box 29322 San Francisco CA 94129, USA • telephone: (1) 707.321.1600 • [email protected] www.heavensmirrormovie.com • www.abuelaluna.com • www.facebook.com/HeavensMirrorMovie to attempt to come to an understanding of the Portuguese soul but which would also examine emotions that we all experience as human beings-- longing, memory, regret, loneliness--saudade. Fado music seemed to encap- sulate all these feelings for the Portuguese.”

In 2005, Mellars was contacted by Donald Cohen who had written a book about fado with photos and fado music and lyrics. Cohen wanted any sug- gestions Mellars could make about tango contacts in Buenos Aires and asked for a dvd of the ﬁlmmaker’s Tango Illusions documentary--Cohen was then planning a book on tango. In return, Don Cohen sent Mellars a copy of his fado book.

“We talked several times about what seemed to be an emotional similarity at the core of the two art forms: tango and fado,” said Mellars.

From the time of the ﬁlmmaker’s matriculation at college, he began to be pulled into fado's orbit, “After all, fado is Portuguese for the English word fate; but I think what made my mind up to ﬁnd out more about this music was its strong emotional appeal and what fado singer Camané was to describe to me later as ‘that sound.’”

After determining that the fado film was a go, the filmmaker made contact with fado singer Ana Moura to ask permission to film her at The Triple Door in Seattle at the beginning of 2006. Mellars, along with executive producer Mo Aimaq and co-producer Issac Pazho, then went about hiring local Seattle cameramen, purchasing plane tickets for the crew, and renting equipment but, as fate would have it, the concert was cancelled: Ana's band was sick in Mo- zambique.

When the concert was rescheduled for April, the filmmakers again made plans to film the concert but production had to be scaled back. Mellars economized where he could, knowing that to accomplish filming on a small budget would require resourcefulness, ingenuity, tenacity, frugality, and the kindness of friends and strangers: a friend from Brown, Rob Elleman, gra-

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18 ciously offered to put the ﬁlmmaker up and also set up interviews and helped in the interviewing of local ﬁsherman.

The crew’s San Francisco based sound recordist stayed at the house of a gen- erous Brown alumna. “The concert itself was enchanting and filming it made me feel I was on the right track doing a fado documentary,” said filmmaker Joshua Dylan Mellars. To illustrate fado's themes of saudade and of nostalgic longing for the past, Mellars was interested in reconnecting with the first Por- tuguese he'd known in Providence while fulfilling a longing he had to see his old college campus. So Providence became the next stop on the fado journey.

Before leaving for Providence, Joshua met a good friend, journalist and audio engineer Joshua Schneyer, who was visiting in San Francisco. When Mellars showed the journalist clips from the Ana Moura concert, Schneyer became interested in helping out with the documentary. (Schneyer speaks Portuguese ﬂuently, having spent many years working as journalist in Brazil.)

“Josh told me that that when I was ready to ﬁlm to just give him a call and he'd be there,” Mellars explained.

Before leaving for Providence, Mellars contacted two Providence fado singers. He also got in touch with the Brown Portuguese and Brazilian Studies department and local fado singer/restaurateur Dinis Paiva. Pascal Molenat, a friend from college days who lived in North Providence, kindly offered to let the ﬁlmmaker stay at his house while in Providence. Once in Providence, the ﬁlmmaker went about contacting Portuguese clubs.

Said Mellars, “I came to rely on the hospitality and the generosity of the Providence Portuguese community to ﬁlm the New England fado scene.”

A typical day would begin with Mellars carrying his large camera and a second bag with tripods and audio recording equipment onto local bus 57 from North Providence to the Brown University campus to ﬁlm. Mellars had only been in Providence for a couple of days when he heard a fado event was scheduled by an organization on the Brown campus--it was there that he

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19 ﬁlmed fadista Madalena Pata. (The Brown campus is near the Portuguese neighborhood of Fox Point and several Portuguese social clubs).

Mellars made friends at the Portuguese Sporting Club in Fox Point and the members invited him to Portuguese Holy Spirit celebrations which were going on in Providence and in nearby cities.

“I can remember eating some delicious grilled sardines in the parking lot of one sporting club,” recalls Mellars.

One Portuguese club member would give Mellars a ride to an event and another member would in turn give the filmmaker a ride to another event or to meet other people in the Portuguese community. “It was like having a gratis underground Portuguese cab service at my disposal. I was a filmmaking gypsy; I didn't know what the next day would bring, but I put my faith in the Portuguese community, hoping that something good would come of it,” explained the filmmaker.

Restaurateur Dinis Paiva invited Mellars to ﬁlm fado nights at his restaurant and permitted him to set up his cameras wherever he wanted them. He also

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20 treated Mellars to a Portuguese buffet each night he filmed at the restaurant. The filmmaker’s friend, Pascal Molenat, drove Mellars to Portuguese fado night at the Amigos da Terceira Portuguese Club in Pawtucket and helped the filmmaker film performances by fadistas Tania DaSilva and Catarina Avelar.

Molenat also helped with the filming of the water fire festival on the Provi- dence River. The creator of the WaterFire festival, Barnaby Evans, also a Brown graduate, gave Mellars a VIP pass to the festivities and free passage on a VIP boat to facilitate filming from the river.

At Brown University, Mellars interviewed the head of the Portuguese and Brazilian Studies department, Onésimo Almeida, who educated the ﬁlm- maker about Portuguese immigration patterns to the US, telling him that many of the ﬁrst Portuguese immigrants came from the Azores where they made their livelihood as farmers. These same Azoreans, explained Almeida, boarded whaling ships and then jumped ship when they arrived at ports in California or New England. In California, the Portuguese settled in the Cen- tral Valley and as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area where Mellars was born and raised.

Completing Providence filming, Mellars returned to California and from June to October of 2006, edited footage. In preparation for his first trip to Portugal, the filmmaker set up interviews with fado singers Mafalda Arnauth, Katia Guerreiro, and Joana Amendoeira.

Just before Mellars left for Portugal, he met a friend from high school, Bryan Maddan, who was leaving for Paris at the same time. Maddan volunteered to help take equipment to Portugal for the production before continuing on to France. Maddan was to stay on in Lisbon for two weeks working as a grip and taking publicity photos. Josh Schneyer, a journalist friend of Mellars from his print and wire service days in Caracas, conducted many of the interviews with the fado singers; Mellars contributed some additional questions at the end of the interviews while manning the camera. The ﬁlmmaker and the journalist particularly enjoyed working together again on a topic that fasci- nated them.

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

21 In filming the fado singers, Mellars wanted to film the fadistas in places that had special meaning for them so he asked each of the singers to pick their own interview location. Katia Guerreiro chose to be filmed near the Tower of Belém because it is the place where the Tagus river opens toward the Atlantic--the ocean that the Portuguese explorers set out upon so boldly centuries ago.

Mellars and Schneyer located a spot with a good backdrop and decent sound but on the the day of the shoot, a loud band and a large crowd made it impossible to ﬁlm effectively. With little time to spare before Katia and her publi- cist would arrive, Mellars ran to a location near the Jerónimos Monastery while Schneyer waited to greet the fadista in order to escort her to the new shooting spot. Fortunately, Mellars had ﬁlmed at the monastery on the previ- ous day and recalled a spot suitable for the interview before Katia and Schneyer arrived.

Mellars reconnected with Jorge Fernando and Ana Moura in Lisbon, he had met both in Seattle, and ﬁlmed them at the Casa de Linhares fado club where they sometimes perform. Mellars also met Celeste Rodrigues, sister of fado legend Amália Rodrigues, at this fado house.

Celeste rarely gives interviews, but Mellars and Schneyer asked if they could just talk with her after one of her shows. After a long and entertaining chat, Rodrigues decided to let the two ﬁlm her. Later the fado singer remarked, “I normally don't do interviews, but I just couldn't say no to your charming smile.”

When Mellars and Schneyer told Ana Moura that they thought it important to go beyond the fado houses to capture other dimensions of fadistas’ lives, the fado singer proposed that the two ﬁlm her at a favorite second hand record store in Lisbon's Chiado.

Renowned fado singer Camané, at first reticent to the idea of being filmed, warmed to the idea when told of the filmmakers’ approach to filming fado: the idea of filming the music in an informal and authentic way. After Mellars

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

22 and his crew ﬁlmed Camané singing at the Mesa de Frades fado house, Ca- mané proposed that he give the ﬁlmmakers an afternoon tour on camera of the Alfama. (Mesa de Frades, originally a chapel, provided an intimate, bohemian setting and a haunt of fadistas in which to capture the fado experience).

Explained Mellars, “Camané was interested in an intimate, authentic shoot, to reﬂect the kind of fado he most enjoys. He told me that he was going to dress casually and wear an old white t-shirt, if that was okay.”

When the fado singer arrived he was dressed in jeans and a dress shirt. “His performance was just as immediate and familiar, as if he were singing for just a few friends at his house,” Mellars said.

Fado singer Mafalda Arnauth chose to be ﬁlmed at an old aqueduct and waterworks in Lisbon, but a few hours before the shoot, the wind began blowing hard, making it impossible to shoot outside and, although she had ﬁlmed music videos inside the old, cavernous waterworks, Mellars knew he didn't have adequate lighting to make the shot work.

“I quickly flipped through a travel guide of Lisbon, noticed the Moorish inte- rior of the Casa do Alentejo and decided to relocate the interview there,” Mellars said. Two weeks after the interview, the filmmakers filmed Mafalda giving them a tour of Sintra, and at Guincho Beach, a place which has been a source of inspiration for the fado singer's songwriting. Mellars also filmed Helder Moutinho rehearsing at the Teatro São Luiz and Joana Amendoeira in the Clube de Fado.

The filmmakers met songwriter Tiago Torres da Silva at the Mesa de Frades fado house: Torres da Silva, who knew fado legend Amália Rodrigues and lent a songwriter’s perspective to the filmmakers, facilitated interviews, introduced fado singers, scouted locations for filming and provided additional fado background information. Torres da Silva drove the filmmakers to Co- imbra where Mellars experienced a very different fado style.

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

23 Carlos Gonçalves, Amália Rodrigues' Portuguese guitarist, was at the concert. (Mellars later filmed Gonçalves at the Guitarras de Lisboa fado house). Late that evening, after filming Gonçalves and fadista Maria João Quadros playing at a church, the fadistas took the filmmakers to a fado house named àCapella where they filmed and enjoyed several sets of Coimbra style fado. Quadros also arranged an interview for the filmmakers with legendary fadista Carlos do Carmo. Schneyer and Mellars interviewed Do Carmo late one evening in the fadista's living room.

A few days later, the filmmakers interviewed Sara Pereira, the director of the National Fado Museum, Museu do Fado. Mellars was not able to include this footage in the final cut, but the information Ms. Pereira imparted and the experience in the museum was extremely helpful in the film's completion.

After a week of filming, an extremely swollen right ankle forced Mellars to visit the emergency room. Portuguese doctors prescribed antibiotics and noted an insect bite as a contributor to the swelling. As Mellars was the only cameraman and the schedule tight, the filmmaker continued to film. The most challenging part of filming with the extremely swollen ankle was following Camané up the steep, curvy cobbled streets of the Alfama. “I was walking backwards up what felt like 90 degree inclines to film the fadista. Camané moves at a pretty good clip, but I knew I had to stay in front of him as he walked--I thought he was on a roll and I didn't want to disrupt his mo- mentum by slowing him down. I remember being glad when he stopped momentarily in a doorway to talk to a friend,” said Mellars.

Upon returning to California, Mellars was invited to the residence of the Por- tuguese Consulate General, António Alves de Carvalho, where he was introduced to Portuguese American artist, João de Brito. The artist, who grew up in Providence, took an immediate interest in the project and helped the ﬁlm- maker connect with the Portuguese community.

When the Consul General learned that the ﬁlmmaker was bound for India to ﬁlm his documentary Play Like a Lion: The Legacy of Ali Akbar Khan, he suggested a visit to Goa while on the Indian Subcontinent and facilitated con-

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

24 tact with the Portuguese consulate there. Once in India, after filming Khan's son, Alam, in Kolkata (Calcutta) for a few weeks, Mellars traveled to Goa to capture images of the Portuguese colonial era: what began as a day filming Portuguese colonial architecture in Panjim developed into a few days of filming and getting to know the Portuguese Goan population.

In Goa, Mellars filmed the Shirsat family and then was invited for lunch. Sonia is a Goan who trained to sing fado in Lisbon; her mother, Alice, grew up speaking Portuguese and also sang fado; her brother showed the filmmaker the family garden, regaling the filmmaker with stories of the way Por- tuguese saudade still manifested itself in Goa. The filmmaker then met and interviewed Goan Orlando Noronha who plays Portuguese guitar and also learned to make Portuguese azulejos in Portugal. (Now Noronha has a thriv- ing business producing his own style of Portuguese azulejos for residences and hotels in Goa). The filmmaker extended his stay in Goa to view and film the “Liberation Day” celebrations commemorating the end of Portuguese rule in Goa in 1961.

After leaving India, Mellars returned to Portugal for additional footage, interviews and to capture winter in Portugal. Mellars wanted to ﬁlm Portuguese guitar maker Gilberto Gracio and fado singer Tereza Tarouca.

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

25 “It was comforting to be in the guitar maker's workshop watching him work and seeing the guitars in various stages of completion. While the guitar maker worked, he talked of saudade and of the three generations of his family who have made guitars,” recalled the ﬁlmmaker.

The ﬁlmmaker then shot various atmospheric, exterior shots in Cascais and in downtown Lisbon. The ﬁlmmaker explained, “You can only fully understand the emptiness and loneliness that some fados express when you visit Lisbon in winter.”

A few days later, Mellars rode with fadista Tereza Tarouca and Tiago Torres da Silva to watch the singer recording. The ﬁlmmaker talked with the fadista en route and again in between takes in the studio. On another occasion, Mel- lars met Tereza for soup and conversation at a neighborhood cafe. The ﬁlm- maker interviewed the fadista on camera on his last day in Portugal.

“I found a natural afﬁnity for the singer: she had a down to earth way of seeing things that I found refreshing,” Mellars recalls.

Returning to California, the filmmaker sought out Portuguese-Americans and remnants of Portuguese influences there. Mellars was introduced to the Por- tuguese community through events at the Portuguese consulate in San Fran- cisco. The filmmaker met Portuguese-Americans Alexander Freemon and Sandra Coelho at Portugal Day festivities in June of 2007 at San Francisco's City Hall hosted by Mayor Gavin Newsom. Alexander's family traces roots deep in Portuguese history. Alexander was later to become a co-producer on the Heaven's Mirror documentary because he was intrigued by the themes of saudade and enchanted with the haunting melodies of fado.

Ms. Coelho, who grew up in Central California and is now an investment banker in San Francisco, invited the filmmaker to view a Portuguese bullfight. Later in the week, Mellars journeyed south to San Jose's Kelley Park to the Portugal Day festivities there where, during a break in filming, the filmmaker shared Portuguese sausages and Alentejo wine with Portuguese artist João de Brito and Consul General António Alves de Carvalho. In July 2007,

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

26 Mellars, along with Abuela Luna Executive Producer Mo Aimaq, accompanied Ms. Coelho to the bullﬁght in Gustine and also met with the Coelho family there.

“In Central California, the Portuguese presence is evident but, as you travel north to the San Francisco Bay Area, the community becomes more diffuse within the larger community so that you could easily miss Portuguese inﬂu- ences if you don't look very carefully,” explained Mellars. Sandra is a quin- tessential ﬁrst generation Portuguese American, having moved with her family to California from the Azores at the age of two.

Throughout the ﬁlming in California, the Consul General was a consummate host and guide to the Northern California Portuguese American community: the ﬁlmmaker remembers the Consul General making the comment that we are all like the Portuguese immigrants--sailing our own boats out into the un- known to discover our fate.

“As ﬁlming began to wind down, I knew I needed some sailing images for my closing shot--Howard and Eileen Turner were kind enough to allow me to sail on their yacht on San Francisco Bay in order to capture those images,” commented the ﬁlmmaker.

It was a rough day on the bay and the filmmaker got seasick midway through the shoot but, after a short break on Angel Island, Mellars finished the last shots of the documentary. Even getting sick played into the film's cinematography--because of the delay, the filmmakers shot at the magic hour, the sun low in the sky and the fog beginning to roll in. Abtin Forghani, the yacht cameraman, captured those beautiful shots despite the waves and the rising swells.

With the bullfight and sailboat footage complete, Mellars and co-producer Alexander Freemon filmed one last fado concert for the documentary during Helder Moutinho’s US tour in March of 2009. As post-production began, Mellars was also finishing his documentary Play Like a Lion: The Legacy of

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

27 Maestro Ali Akbar Khan and as a result he was forced to delay completing a ﬁnal cut of Heaven's Mirror until 2011.

Director Joshua Dylan Mellars said of filming Heaven's Mirror, “They say filmmaking is a collaborative effort and I found that especially descriptive of my experience making this film. I'd like to thank the generosity of all those who helped in a multiplicity of ways to see Heaven's Mirror safely into port.”

Brief Fado History Born in the old Moorish district of the Alfama 150 years ago, Lisbon fados are Portuguese songs ﬁlled with saudade, lamenting unrequited love, danger at sea, and the beauty and poetry of the bullﬁght. Fadista Amália Rodrigues’ popularity beginning in the 1940!s spread interest in fado music throughout the world. Singer Carlos do Carmo now serves as a bridge between the older generation of fado singers and a New Wave of fado singers lead by fadistas Camané, Mafalda Arnauth, Katia Guerreiro, Mariza and Ana Moura.

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage

28 ABUELA LUNA PICTURES Presents Film Details

Cast: Ana Moura, Camané, Mafalda Arnauth, Carlos do Carmo, Helder Moutinho, Joana Amendoeira, Katia Guerreiro, Celeste Rodrigues, Carlos Gonçalves, Jorge Fernando, Tereza Tarouca World Premiere: Santa Rosa International Film Festival--A 25th Wine Country Film Festival Event (September 2011) World Premiere Location: California, USA Genre: Documentary (Music, History, Travel) Running Time: 70 minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.78 (16:9) Country of Production: USA Countries of Filming: Portugal, USA, India Filming Locations: San Francisco Bay Area, The Central Valley, Lisbon, Sintra, Goa, New Bedford, Providence, Pawtucket Year of Completion: 2011 Original Language: English, Portuguese Print Details: Color, Stereo Producer, Director, Writer, Cinematographer, Editor: Joshua Dylan Mellars Executive Producer: Mojib Aimaq Co-Producers: Alexander Freemon, Issac Pazho, Joshua Schneyer Associate Producer: Robert Elleman Production Company: Abuela Luna Pictures LLC

P.O. Box 29322 San Francisco CA 94129, USA • telephone: (1) 707.321.1600 • [email protected] www.heavensmirrormovie.com • www.abuelaluna.com • www.facebook.com/HeavensMirrorMovie Web Links

Ofﬁcial Heaven’s Mirror Website: www.heavensmirrormovie.com Production Company Website: www.abuelaluna.com

Director’s Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/joshua.dylan.mellars

Heaven’s Mirror Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/HeavensMirrorMovie

Director’s Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/JoshuaMellars

Heaven’s Mirror IMDB Page: www.imdb.com/title/tt1560641 Director’s IMDB Page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3562895

Teaser Trailer YouTube Link: http://youtu.be/kbRlEIxlW0Y

Abuela Luna Pictures Channel: www.youtube.com/user/AbuelaLunaPictures

Heaven’s Mirror Teaser Trailer Vimeo Link: www.vimeo.com/joshuadylanmellars/heavensmirrorteaser

Director’s Vimeo Page: www.vimeo.com/joshuadylanmellars

Abuela Luna Pictures! Heaven’s Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage