FROM S... TO S... AND THUS SUCCESSIVELY

This is the second feature from Sandro Mendes. A 25 mins lenght short film, also filmed in digital format.

Statement by Sandro Mendes, director and writer: 

“What interests me more than capturing the transformations of a character, is to expose it’s own perceptions, thoughts and feelings experienced in a non linear narrative. In this short film, the character rejects the surrounding world and becomes the world. Unconsciously Samara, the main character, creates an imaginary safe ground for her fragility towards reality, therefore she will conduct the time and space of her quest, in a search for the balance of her personality.”

Synopsis

A woman isolated in her apartment, becomes a victim of a severe sequence of bipolar disorder episodes. This condition was triggered by the ending of a long term relationship. Left in the edge of pain and loneliness, she incarnates the identity of her ex-partner, simultaneously blocking any subconscious guilt complex of failure.

This swap of personalities condemned her to a worst conflict; she still bares the feeling of being abandoned, in this case by her "true self". This misinterpretation comes as a result from her illness, where she assumes as truth, an unrealistic ideal situation, where she would be the one putting an end to the relationship, leaving all the pain and loneliness inflicted to her ex-partner.

And while assuming her ex-partner personality, she becomes obsessed to find the woman who is gone from her/“his” life. Consequently, the hallucination episodes become more frequent and vivid, making her lose total grip of reality. Her delusions take her to different places where finally she, being "him", sees her true self walking amongst the crowd, appearing as a mysterious woman in a red dress.

The chase to find the woman in red starts...

For more information about the shooting process as well a few still shots from the short film, please check for ABSURD Office on Facebook.

COUPE ROUGE

This work is the debut of the young director Sandro Mendes. A 7 mins lenght short film, filmed in digital format.

Statement by Sandro Mendes, director and writer:

"This short film seeks to portray in a metaphorical sense the primary fears and consequences from the post rupture of a relationship. The plot unfolds through a poetic narrative, whether through dialogue or monologue of the characters. The atmosphere and tone, strengthens the feeling of being watching a dream within a dream, but with a reality of profound feelings experienced by the characters."

The surreal elements in Coupe Rouge, come from film genres more attuned with the European and Asian Experimentalist "Art house" cinema, proclaiming therefore the main influences of the Portuguese filmmaker.

The casting consisted of only two actors, Eric Lamoureux and Karnpitcha Sathapitanon.

Eric Lamoureux, a Canadian graphic designer and also a self-taught photographer, showned great interest in participating in the project, revealing a surprisingly good performance in front of the camera.

The young Thai Karnpitcha Sathapitanon (Kwan), was chosen amongst other young actresses because of her solid experience demonstrated in previous works: film, sitcom, soap operas, commercials.

Coupe Rouge (Red Cut), is the first short film of a trilogy conceived by Sandro Mendes. The main concept is the lovers rupture and their self-denial of "mea culpa" through the inversion of roles within the couple. Throughout the trilogy the characters take refuge in the escapism from grim facts and from the re-adjustment of living alone, driven by feelings like obsession; retaliation; passion and Red. Yes, red was chosen as a methafore for such feelings explored in the trilogy, either by visual colored elements or even in as a characters name (symbolizing  the personality,  the object of desire).

In the case of Coupe Rouge, under the form of object/color, the red ribbon represents the lovers relationship and one's inability of setting himself free.

A brief biography

Sandro Mendes, was born in 1977 at the city of Porto, Portugal. In 1998, graduated in Project Design from the Árvore Artistic & Superior School.

He worked in architecture, industrial and graphic design. Parallel to these professional activities, was also a guitarist in a late 90s-00s post-punk revival band.

Around 2001, he was chosen to play a secondary role in an independent short film titled "Closer", which was promoted and acclaimed abroad in several international short film festivals. A year after, he collaborated with the same director, a minor helpful hand during the production, yet extremely valuable in the sense of an inner further growing interest in filmmaking.

In 2008, he relocated to South-East Asia, and Bangkok was the city of choice. There, he enrolled as a student in the International Institute SAE, aiming to expand his knowledge in the art of film making techniques. Soon after, in 2011, he graduated in Film Arts.


In between 2008-2011, Sandro Mendes wrote and directed three productions. His debut was a 7 minutes length neo-surrealist short film entitled "Coupe Rouge" aka "Red Cut". The second short film was a 30 minutes mini feature, entitled “From “S...” to “S...” and Thus Successively” which differed in style from the previous, having a much closer approach to an art-house/psychological-thriller genre. Last but not least Sandro finished his third mini-feature, "Little Daeng´s Mood for the Big Bad Escapism", a 16 mins lenght short film written and filmed in the same genre and style of his second work.


Aside his self-releases, other collaborations occurred in a recent past, as co-writer, actor and cinematographer. Worth to mention a few titles like: “Call it a night”; “Pedetes”; "Perenial Vow"; “All in your head”. Sandro Mendes also worked in the production of two music videos: “Roboter” by Reimstoff and “Fun Park” by Snatch.