As Melusinas à Beira do Rio still
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The Melusinas at the Edge of the River

2023
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Born in Luxembourg to immigrant families, five women reflect on countries, identities, fragments, and mermaids.

While searching among mountains and rivers for Melusina, the mutant and legendary mermaid of the city of Luxembourg, the director talks to four women about their uncertain identities : what it is like to be an immigrant without being one, and to be Luxembourgish without being one. A journey through memories in rainy times. A search for ever-fragmented identities. An uncertain attempt at reconciliations.

By  Melanie Pereira
Documentary
2023
Portugal and Luxembourg / 84 min.
Color, DCP, ProRes, H.264, 16:9, Sound 5.1

Awards

Best National Documentary - Porto Femme, Portugal, 2024.
HBO Max Award for Best Portuguese Competition Film - Doclisboa, Portugal, 2023.
Fernando Lopes Award - Doclisboa, Portugal, 2023.
Schools Award - Doclisboa, Portugal, 2023.

Festivals

M-DOC, Melgaço International Documentary Festival - Oficial Competition, Portugal, 2024.
Fidmarseille International Film Festival - Official Competition, France, 2024.
Porto Femme - National Documentaries Competition, Portugal, 2024.
Porto Post Doc - Cinema Falado Competition, Portugal, 2023.
Doclisboa - National Competition, Portugal, 2023.

+ More

Exhibitions

Film Cycle "The Limits of Europe", Coliseu do Porto, 2024.
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Credits

Written and Direction

Melanie Pereira

Photography

Pedro Neves and Melanie Pereira

Sound

Ricardo Leite

Editing

Tomás Baltazar and Melanie Pereira

Sound Mix

Maurício D’Orey

Graphics

Menina Camarada

Production Director

Pedro Neves and Liliana Lasprilla

Producer

Pedro Neves

Production

Red Desert

The Melusinas at the Edge of the River poster
As Melusinas à Beira do Rio still
As Melusinas à Beira do Rio still
As Melusinas à Beira do Rio still
As Melusinas à Beira do Rio still
As Melusinas à Beira do Rio still
As Melusinas à Beira do Rio still
Previous / Lucefece: Where there is no vision, the people will perish
Dreams of a Revolution / Next

Director’s notes

The Melusinas at the Edge of the River

By  Melanie Pereira
Portugal and Luxembourg
Color, DCP, ProRes, H.264, 16:9, Sound 5.1

Since the beginning of my career in cinema, I have worked on various themes re-lated to the condition of women in society, women in cinema, e/imigration, the space of the home, identity and memory. The search for this film is a reflection on immigration, identities, houses and women. 

After having worked on the process of my parents’ emigration from Portugal to Luxembourg in the 1990s, dealing with the return to the country always postponed and the space of the closed dream home, in As Melusinas à margem do rio I turn the camera the other way, seeking to portray women, daughters of immigrants in Luxembourg, and by extension, myself. 

The idea for this film emerged at the end of 2018, and over the last five years it has taken on dimensions that have, at times, overtaken me. If throughout the film I try to find the legendary mermaid Melusina, founder of Luxembourg, but with a history far beyond the small country and perhaps a mermaid and/immigrant, the truth is that I seek in Melusina to assimilate all the fragments that make up my identity, and help to unravel the answers to several questions: am I Luxembourgish, or even considered Luxembourgish? Or am I an immigrant in the country where I was born and raised? What does it mean to be Luxembourgish? Why have I never understood Luxembourg as my home, and what led me to emigrate to Portugal? What made me feel this fragmentation of identity? 

It was through conversations with four women in the same situation as me that I started to understand, find and accept some of the answers to these questions. Daughters of immigrants in Luxembourg, they decided to stay in the counry: Ana-Filipa, daughter of Portuguese; Melina, daughter of Spanish mother and Congolese father; Shanila, daughter of Ugandans; Amela, daughter of Montenegrins. More than, as initially thought, taking them to meet Melusina, they take me to meet this mythical figure, and al- low me an attempt at reconciliation with a country and a past with which I have always had difficulties.