Mentiras sãs: sobre dois filmes de apropriação 'falsos'

"A glória de fazer cinema em Portugal" (Manuel Mozos, 2015) and "Redemption" (Miguel Gomes, 2013) are recent examples of "appropriation films," a filmmaking practice that has seen important development in Portugal over the past fifteen years. The two films stand out, however, because they use fabricated archival footage (Mozos) and real archival footage (Gomes) to tell a fictional story. This places them within the scope of the "fake documentary" genre. If one accepts current scholarly definitions of appropriation films, it is possible to see these two "fake" films as apt illustrations of the epistemological and pedagogical potential of the appropriation film with respect not only to cinema but also to historical knowledge.