Dissemination

José Bogalheiro publishes book “Between Granite and the Rainbow – Cinema as a Metamorphosis of Inner Experience”

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José Bogalheiro, CIAC researcher and retired professor at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School, has just released his latest book Between Granite and the Rainbow – Cinema as a Metamorphosis of Inner Experience, published by Documenta with the support of CIAC and the Lisbon Theatre and Film School.

The publication marks the culmination of a cycle of applied creative research carried out within the scope of CIAC / IPL-ESTC, focused on cinema as a catalyst for inner experience. This cycle began in 2020 and has so far resulted in three separate volumes, all originally composed of monthly chronicles published on the cinephilia website À Pala de Walsh.

This third volume, now released, revisits a question raised by Virginia Woolf — “how to bring about the fusion of truth as something of granite solidity, and personality as something intangible as a rainbow?” — to propose a reflection on how the spectator shapes their experience in front of a film. The book’s title is directly inspired by this metaphor.

As in the previous books (Se Confinado Um Espectador, 2022, and Do Álbum Que Me Coube em Sorte, 2023), Between Granite and the Rainbow develops around the idea of “cinema as a metamorphosis of inner experience” — a unique form of creative occupation of time, in which the spectator surrenders to the “hour and a half of speculative solitude” and to the more or less subterranean investigations that a film sets in motion.

This work aligns with a counter-current vision to the fatalistic discourse on the end of cinema, affirming instead its vital role as “the ground of our common humanity.” The spectator, a central figure in this process, is here compared to a rewinder, a collector, a pearl fisher, or a mountain wanderer — someone who investigates, recalls, and constructs a personal cartography of cinephilia.

The book was publicly released at the Linha de Sombra Bookshop – Portuguese Cinematheque, on December 6, 2024, with presentations by Ricardo Vieira Lisboa and António Guerreiro.

Access the book (here) and (here).

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