Meet Portuguese Film Director Luísa Sequeira

The award winning documentary film "What Words Can Do" creatively revisits one of the most celebrated books of Portuguese literature published in 1972, Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters) by Portuguese writers Maria Teresa Horta, Maria Velho da Costa, Maria Isabel Barreno (the 'three Marias'). Their book addressed censored issues such as Portugal's colonial wars in Africa, emigration, the legal and social status of women and became a symbol of resistance against the fascist dictatorship of Estado Novo which promptly arrested the authors and censored the book under the accusation of ‘pornographic content’ and ‘outraging public morals.’

Praised by international figures like Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, Adrienne Rich and Anne Sexton, and championed by Gloria Steinem in Ms. Magazine, the New Portuguese Letters and the three Marias were adopted as "the first international feminist cause."

This event is sponsored by the Institute for Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies and the Portuguese Studies Program at RIC.