Malamor / Tainted Love is the name of a film cycle that brings together BoCA, Cinemateca Portuguesa and Filmoteca Española in a collaboration dedicated to cinema as an affective, political, unclassifiable territory. João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata are the latest to join Cinemateca Portuguesa’s “Guest Directors” series with a carte blanche in the form of a mirror: a selection of their own films in dialogue with works by other directors that span decades, geographies and cinematic genres.

Inspired by both the song Tainted Love and Carlos Drummond de Andrade’s neologism “malamar”, this cycle — comprising around 60 films spread over 25 screenings — offers a vertiginous itinerary through desire and disenchantment, love and its reverse. From António Giménez-Rico to Almodóvar, John Waters to Fassbinder, and from Lucio Fulci to Tsai Ming-Liang and Derek Jarman to Jean-Luc Godard, the selection reveals a radical and at times disconcerting love for film, where the pleasure of discovery overrides the conformity of the canon.

The cycle runs simultaneously in both Lisbon and Madrid through September and October, and includes two brand new works: the world premiere of the short film “13 Alfinetes”, commissioned by BoCA and shot between Lisbon and Madrid, and the film installation “Sem Antes Nem Depois”, on show at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes.