Résumé

The following paper describes the artistic process of memórias em movimento: A Mulher e o Cinema, a videoart project that appropriates and is inspired by a manuscript by Fernando Gonçalves Lavrador, a Portuguese literary essayist dedicated to cinema studies. Developed within a PhD in digital media arts, it explores the intersection of text, image, and movement through audiovisual and digital environments. The work also aims to honor Lavrador, whose archives were donated in 2021 to the Cine-Clube de Avanca [Avanca Film Club], serving as a foundation for artistic reinterpretation. This project follows the logic of the audiovisual essay, a format that reconfigures cinematic material to create new meanings. Based on Lavrador’s text “A Mulher e o Cinema” (Women and Cinema), the audiovisual work is divided into three sections. It begins with a prologue featuring Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies, integrating typographic and kinetic elements. The second segment focuses on the 1950s actress and pin-up icon Betty Grable, portraying her roles as both idealized and objectified through a dreamlike montage. The final section shifts to a rawer, grid-like visual style, presenting the works of the filmmakers Germaine Dulac, Olga Preobrazhenskaya, and Leontine Sagan. Throughout the piece, textual elements remain integral, blending with visuals to enrich the dialogue between Lavrador’s writings and the films and female directors referenced in his text. This work ultimately highlights the potential of the audiovisual essay as both an analytical and creative tool.