Film about the eviction of residents from Alta de Coimbra premieres this month

The premiere of the documentary 'Salatinas -- Stories of the Old Alta of Coimbra' will take place on Sunday, June 22, at 9:00 pm, at Largo da Porta Férrea of ​​the University of Coimbra, as part of the 'Sons da Cidade' initiative, in Alta itself, from where three thousand people were expelled in the 1940s.

The project seeks to portray the urban transformation of Alta, carried out through forced evictions and the destruction of 255 buildings, but also the forms of resistance found by the Salatinas (people born in that area of ​​the city), who created "other altas", Rafael Vieira and Filipa Queiroz, who with Tiago Cerveira are making the documentary, told Lusa.

The idea for the film came from the report that Rafael Vieira, who has a background in architecture, wrote about the Salatinas for the local magazine Coimbra Coolectiva, where Filipa Queiroz was, at the time, director.

This was followed by a book by Rafael for the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation on the subject, but, in the process, a documentary began to be conjured up with Filipa Queiroz and also with the director and photographer Tiago Cerveira.

The documentary features interviews with Salatinas who were displaced, descendants who preserve their memories and identity, as well as experts who contextualize that urban transformation, Rafael Vieira tells Lusa.

The film uses images and photographs found in personal collections and archives of the City Council and the University, an unpublished video of the old Alta and the demolitions, letters of complaints from expropriated people and even a recording of a Salatina guitarist from the 1920s (in addition to the original band composed by Gonçalo Parreirão).

The documentary is divided into three chapters, focusing on what it was like and what the experiences of the old Alta were like, the destruction of those historic neighborhoods and their transformation into a university city, and the neighborhoods to which the Salatinas were sent.

In the film, the team focuses on the rehousing in the Bairro de Celas, Fonte do Castanheiro and Norton de Matos, in a process that also showed "the perversity on the part of the Estado Novo", with the division of the Salatinas by economic classes, explains Rafael Vieira, pointing to the case of the Bairro Norton de Matos, where middle-class people were moved, reflecting on the quality of construction and the existence of equipment and services, unlike in other neighbourhoods.

Furthermore, in Norton de Matos, people "paid rent and, after 25 years, they had possession of the house", says Rafael Vieira, considering that this characteristic led to a dilution of the community.

In the case of Celas or Fonte do Castanheiro, "a much stronger and more present community identity remains", he notes.

"There is a very strong neighborhood issue that is not seen in other places and that is fueled even by generations that no longer grew up in Alta, that grew up in the neighborhoods", adds Filipa Queiroz.

For Rafael, "people created their own Altas".

"They found a way to retrieve their experiences and created another Feira dos Lázaros, other bonfires. There is an identity-based resistance", he states.

Filipa Queiroz adds that resistance involves pride and the preservation of memory, something that is also present in collections and stories that are passed down from generation to generation.

"We are talking, above all, about people who had jobs, the so-called gossips, who are never heard much. And here, in the reality of Coimbra, I think that in general, doctors are given more voice than gossips", said the journalist.

The story of these people will now be heard on June 22nd, in the heart of the University of Coimbra, and will then be shown on festivals, with the hope that it will be shown in national cinemas later this year.

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