Project EXIMUS in Paris

The opening of the exhibition Chansons de l’exil portugais à l’aube de la Révolution des Œillets (1974), on 13 September 2025, brought together seventy people at the Maison du Portugal – André de Gouveia, in a social event organised with the association Mémoire vive – Memória viva. Among the visitors were community activists, academics, teachers of Portuguese language, musicians, filmmakers, publishers, librarians, journalists, visitors of the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris, beside others, interested in Portuguese culture. The event was also graced by the presence of the director of the Maison du Portugal-André de Gouveia, João Costa Ferreira, as well as Jorge Barreto Xavier, Cultural Counsellor at the Portuguese Embassy in Paris, and Mafalda Paiva de Oliveira, Deputy Consul General of Portugal in Paris.

On the same evening, the special screening of O Salto (1967), a French fiction film, brought together forty-five people and was accompanied by a presentation by Agnès Pellerin, focusing on its circulation, as well as the participation of the musician Luís Cília. Thanks to the collaboration of the Festival International du Film d’Histoire de Pessac, the film was shown with French subtitles. After the screening, a debate, which also included Manuel Deniz Silva, allowed to highlight the importance of this pioneering film about immigration in France in the 1960s. Several members of the audience emphasised the high quality of O Salto, which, once restored, should be used in educational contexts.

On 20 September, again in partnership with Maison du Portugal, the Fernando Pessoa room hosted a highly successful concert by singers Francisco Fanhais and Manuel Freire, accompanied on the guitar by Rogério Cardoso Pires, who performed in front of an audience of over 140 people. The audience praised the musical quality of the concert, appreciating the presence of the musicians who, in an intense and sometimes moving way, contextualised each song. After the concert, a conversation with Hugo Castro and Ricardo Andrade, researchers at INET-md who collaborate on the EXIMUS project, allowed for a deeper understanding, through testimonies and short stories, of the specificities of their direct or indirect experience of exile in France during that period.

Journalist Carlos Pereira produced a report on the event for RTP International’s Hora dos Portugueses programme, available online.

This series of events, which will continue in October, was partially funded by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under project UID 00472, Instituto de Etnomusicologia – Centro de Estudos em Dança (INET-md) and project 2022.05129. PTDC, EXIMUS: “‘Everyone must be warned’: Music and exile in France during the Estado Novo regime (1933-1974)”.