Two filmmakers with a highly distinctive body of work, for whom cinema is not about explaining reality, but about observing it and listening to those who live it.
From April 29 to May 3, Play-Doc will celebrate its 22nd edition in Tui, Galicia, Spain. This year, the festival will dedicate its two main retrospectives to German filmmaker Viola Stephan and Brazilian filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho. Working in very different contexts and with very different methods, both directors share a similar way of approaching the people they film: in their work, individuals are not reduced to social categories or shaped to fit pre-existing ideas, but appear as people with their own lives and experiences. Each film grows out of the encounter with them — out of looking, listening, and conversation.
Viola Stephan: Filming a Changing World
The retrospective dedicated to Viola Stephan brings together the films she made during the 1990s, grouped under the title Interim, a term referring to the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet bloc — a moment when the old order had disappeared and the new one had not yet taken shape. Shot in Germany, Poland, and Russia on 35mm and presented at the festival in newly digitised versions as an international premiere, these films observe this process of political and social transformation through everyday life, conversations, gestures, and the spaces where those historical changes become visible.
Eduardo Coutinho: Cinema of the Spoken Word
The second major retrospective of this edition will be dedicated to Eduardo Coutinho(1933–2014), a key figure in Brazilian documentary cinema. The retrospective will focus on the films produced by VideoFilmes during Coutinho’s later period, when he developed the working method that would come to define his cinema, with the exception of Cabra marcado para morrer, a film made prior to this period and a landmark in his career. In these films, Coutinho reduces cinema to a minimal device — a camera, a space, and a conversation — building his films around the words of the people he films and the relationship that develops with them at the moment of filming.
If Viola Stephan’s films observe historical change through spaces, everyday life, and the people and communities who inhabit a world in transformation, Eduardo Coutinho’s cinema is built on conversation, storytelling, and memory. In both cases, each film begins with a specific encounter — with people, places, and situations — and takes shape through that encounter rather than from preconceived narratives.
Filmmaker Viola Stephan will be present at Play-Doc to accompany the retrospective and present her films in person. Filmmaker and producer João Moreira Salles, a key collaborator in the final stage of Coutinho’s work, will introduce the retrospective dedicated to the Brazilian director.
True to its history as an independent festival, Play-Doc has, over the years, combined the discovery and rediscovery of singular filmmakers with the recognition of major figures in film history. The retrospectives dedicated to Viola Stephan and Eduardo Coutinho reflect this dual commitment that defines the festival and also mark a return to documentary cinema, which has been central to the festival since its beginning and remains at its heart.
In the coming weeks, the rest of the program for this 22nd edition will be announced, including the competitive sections, seminars, masterclasses, concerts, expanded cinema sessions, and professional activities. These include VENTURA, a platform for professional training, project development, and an international co-production forum, among other initiatives.