Proud to be Portuguese Canadian - the event(s) Posted by João on 5:31 pm

For those Portuguese-Canadians who hail from the province of British Columbia, the name Terry Costa is one a lot of people got to know over the years. In Vancouver, when it came to community activism and participation within the Portuguese community, Terry (on the right) was, and in many ways still is, the poster boy of many initiatives. These days he calls the Azores home, although he still does a lot of traveling back and forth between Canada and the islands.

Presently, through his production organisation Mirateca Arts,Terry has set out on one of his bigger ventures yet when it comes to the Portuguese in Canada. Aimed primarily at Portuguese descendant youth, Terry is the man behind the initiative Proud to be Portuguese Canadian (PtbPC), an initiative that sets out a number of objectives that include: 1.) stimulating young professional luso-descendants, students, their families and colleagues in discovering the Portuguese culture of today; 2.) strengthing links between the Portuguese in Canada and the Canadian social, cultural, political and economic life; 3.) promoting Portuguese culture through the presentation of artists and other cultural agents; and 4.) expressing pride in being Portuguese-Canadian.

A series of PtbPC events will take place in Toronto during a 10 day period, from March 15th to the 25th, kicking off with a ‘not your regular kind of conference’ conference on Saturday, the 17th at the Mod Club Theatre, featuring special guests, among them Portuguese-Canadian celebrity chef extraordinaire, Carmen Correia, as well as presentations, talk-backs and more.

As well, the PtbPC initiative inviting members of his community to submit their “Proud to be Portuguese Canadian” videos to a video contest aimed at bringing greater invisibility to the heritage of Portuguese descendants residing in multicultural Canada. Videos can be sent via email to proudtobeportuguesecanadian@gmail.com or uploaded on YouTube with the link then sent in to the same e-mail address. The person who’s video gets the most views wins him or herself a cool ‘grand’ (aka $1000.00).

The PtbPC project is also a media partner with Canadian Music Week (CMW) and Missão Canadá: Mission Canada that, this year, are presenting a special "Focus on Portugal" session at the Slacker Canadian Music Fest, showcasing a series of music acts from Portugal. This year’s CMW will run from March 21st to 25th and will feature among the 100’s of music acts, a couple of hand fulls from Portugal, including Setubal’s Mazgani, Porto’s masked men Blasted Mechanism, Braga’s Peixe:Avião, among others…

So there you go, if you’re in Toronto come the month of March, this is something worth taking in. Leave you with a couple of fun promotional posters for the event which also contain the website where you can go to get more info.

Regressa Urgente / Return Urgent Posted by João on 2:09 pm

About a year and a half ago I carried out an interview with Marta Raposo, a Portuguese-Canadian fado singer, for a project on the return to Portugal of Portuguese emigrant descendants. Marta's story and reflections on her return experience were very interesting, so much so that I decided to approach my fellow CEMRI, Universidade Aberta researcher and filmmaker António Saraiva (his works include: Gente de Fajãs, Orlando Ribeiro, among others) with the idea of filming Marta. After selling the idea on António, we appraoched Marta to see if she'd be interested in being films for a possible documentary, only to find out that she was contemplating another return, back to Montreal, Canada. This added a new twist to the story, one we definitely wanted to capture. We filmed Marta for nearly two months, leading up to her departure.

We are now happy to show the fruits of our labour in the form of Regressa Urgente (Return Urgente), a documentary on the the final days of a dream chasing emigrant descendant returnee in Portugal.

Here's the film's synopsis:

Marta Raposo emigrated to Montreal, Canada with her parents at the age of 9. Possessing an enormous passion for singing and the Portuguese language, at the age of 16 she initiated her musical career, becoming the lead singer of a Portuguese popular music group. Early on, however, Marta quickly discovered that her true musical love lied not in popular music, but instead, in the 'Portuguese national song' - fado. Thus, at the age 18, Marta stepped on stage at the Portuguese Club of Montreal to perform fado for the first time, never to look back. Since that performance - with every song, with every ovation, with every word of encouragement - her passion for the 'Portuguese national song' grew, as did her ambitions. As a result, in 2005, after 8 years of singing fado in Canada, Marta set out to accomplish a dream - to record and launch an album and make it in the world of fado in Portugal.

We catch up with Marta 5 years after her arrival in Portugal. After numerous adventures in the Portuguese fado world, including the launch of her first album in 2009, we follow her steps, observe her relationships and capture her last performances. We collect her thought, her doubts and regrets, exploring her sense of belonging and the reasons for once again emigrating, revealing that not even the strongest desires are enough to sustain this 'fadista' (fado singer) in the 'land of fado'.

And so now it's our goal to get the film out to as many people as we can. The first official showing will take place in Toronto at York University Wednesday, Oct. 12th at 17:00 (http://porcansymposium.eventbrite.com/). Future showings will be posted. Any questions, suggestions, or simply interested in finding out more, please let us know either here on the blog or on our facebook page.