“When Rita Sá Marques invited me to be Ambassador of the Festival OLHARES DO MEDITERRÂNEO – Cinema no Feminino, I accepted immediately. The Festival was born in 2014 and this edition will bring us again sounds and colours of countries that rarely occupy our screen, images and sounds brought to us by adventurous women, who, by sheer stubbornness, courageously and too late, have conquered with their own look and self standing signature the cinematographic plateau. Mediterranean and Cinema suggest, immediately, a common dimension, and a precious one – the LIGHT. To the Mediterranean – nowadays so sadly in our news for infamous and inhuman reasons – we owe the millennium long illumination of its banks, inspiring the people who populate them to create the best part of what constitutes our civilization. To the Cinema – an art just a little older than a century – we owe strong and enduring emotions, so often redeemers of the filthy dirt of time, sparkling as lighthouses, generous and firm, like salvation buoys. As Ambassador of this festival, I’ve committed myself to cherish and love these OLHARES.” – Maria João Seixas