The people from Bijagós share a vision of the world where men, nature and spirits form a collaborative system where everything is connected. The singularity of their patrimony makes them one of the most original and unique, but the ‘outside world’ advances inexorably and threatens the fragile equilibrium that sustains them. In developmentalists its common to see the opposition between culture and development, where culture is associated with the rural and traditional, i.e. an obstacle to progress and modernization. Waste is like a crime, solidarity unquestionable and the elder respected and protected. In a country thirsty for modernity will its people be capable of resisting to the voracity of ‘development’?! Is it possible to have a new synthesis between tradition and modernity?! 

LUIS CORREIA was born in Portugal. He attended the The Lisbon Theatre and Film School and holds an MFA in Film Directing by the Edinburgh College of Art. He teaches in Video and Documental Cinema at the Abrantes College and is a member of the group of trustees of EURODOC. He was the founder and director of DOCLISBOA. In 2000 he funded LX FILMES production company with which he produced several projects among which ‘State of the World’ directed by Wang Bing, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pedro Costa, Vicente Ferraz, Ayisha Abraham and Chantal Akerman, for the comemorations of the fiftiest anniversary of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2006) and premiered at the ‘Quinzaine des Realisateurs’ (Cannes, 2007); “Tão Perto / Tão Longe”, a collection of de 20 short films commissioned by the Gulbenkian Program Distance and Proximity; ‘Imagináfrica’, collection of 10 documentaries with filmmakers from the Portuguese Language Speaking Countries. He recently produced ‘Por Aqui Tudo Bem’ and ‘Kadjike’, both feature length fictions.