Abstract

As a proposal for work on this theme, we present a detailed description of the project ‘SPECULUM: Filming and looking at oneself in the mirror – The use of self-writing by Portuguese-speaking documentary filmmakers.’ This research project was conducted at the University of Beira Interior between November 2021 and October 2023. It received funding as an exploratory project from the Foundation for Science and Technology (EXPL/ART-CRT/0231/2021). In it we propose to develop an expository approach to the study’s objectives, the corpus investigated, and the actions developed and to be developed. For this purpose, we focus on foundational conceptual issues and provide a partial presentation of the corpus, including brief analyses of the Portuguese and Brazilian films that constitute it. The topic of those films directly or indirectly explores the biographies of their female directors themselves, but with particular emphasis on the film ‘Olmo e a Gaivota’ (Petra Costa 2015). The presentation concludes with a proposal for a brief exploration through the concept of research in art, considering the characteristics of the described project, simultaneously analytical and creative, aiming to emphasize the potential for understanding pre-existing artistic objects as well as the conception of new objects of study, thereby outlining plans for post-project endeavours.