Portuguese cinema has long been distinguished by a keen sensitivity to local traditions and textures, a tendency best expressed by the innovative and poetically inflected documentary impulse shaping the work—in fiction and non-fiction alike—of such diverse filmmakers as Manoel de Oliveira, António Campos, Pedro Costa, António Reis and Margarita Cordeiro, all subjects of past Harvard Film Archive retrospectives. With her two films to date, Marta Mateus (b. 1984) reignites this tradition through evocative portraits of the people and landscapes of rural Alentejo, the agricultural heartland of Portugal. Cast with non-actors from the region of her hometown, Estremoz, Barbs, Wasteland (2017) and Fire of Wind (2024) together give lyrical voice to those who live closest to the land by opening a space to record and creatively expand their labor, memories and dreams. Both films openly reveal Mateus’ politically sharped attention to history through embodied presence. On the occasion of her visit to the Harvard Film Archive, Marta Mateus has curated a wonderful series of touchstone films by directors who, each in their own way, forged modes of engaged cinema; among them: Straub-Huillet, von Stroheim and the post-revolution generation of Portuguese directors who sought to reinvent their national cinema—artists with whom her films are engaged in a close and lively dialogue. – Haden Guest