Rob Rombout

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▶ Excerpt · 3′57″

199540 minDocumentary

Les Açores de Madredeus

The Azores of Madredeus

On the Azores the light can change completely in a minute, and the music of Madredeus is at home there. Teresa Salgueiro, the band's voice, and Pedro Ayres Magalhães, its guitarist and composer, travel around the islands and rediscover the many origins of their music. Landscapes, the words of islanders and the rituals of popular feasts call up the themes of their songs, and Rob Rombout films the archipelago as if it were one of them.

Press

“I had seen his earlier short films, I talked with Rob and I knew that he could do it.”

« J’avais vu ces précédents courts métrages, j’ai discuté avec Rob et j’ai su que lui pourrait le faire. »

Pedro Ayres Magalhães, La Libre Belgique, 1995 · Our translation.

“an iconological approach to the Azorean landscape”

«abordagem iconológica da paisagem açoreana»

Cinemateca Portuguesa, 2025 · Our translation.
  1. 1995De eilanden van het eeuwige vertrekAgnes Goyvaerts, De Morgen · PDF ↗
  2. 1995Madredeus, bande originale du paysage portugaisKarin Tshidimba, La Libre Belgique · PDF ↗
  3. 1995Pedro et Teresa : un cas isolé au charme indicibleThierry Coljon, Le Soir · PDF ↗
  4. 2022An exercise in styleMarc-Emmanuel Mélon, The Mise en Scène of the Real, Yellow Now, provisional translation · PDF ↗

Photographs

Six men and a woman in a white skirt on a concrete sea wall, green terraced hills across the water
1995Azores
A young woman with a braid in a black jacket in front, five men in dark suits on the sea wall behind her
1995Azores
Musicians in dark suits and a woman in white standing on a slope of black volcanic ash, a guitar case in front
1995Faial, Capelinhos
A wide slope of dark ash with musicians, a reflector, a parasol and equipment cases spread out
1995Faial, Capelinhos
A woman in a white dress faces the camera, musicians seated behind her on the ash; a cameraman in the foreground
1995Faial, Capelinhos
A cellist in a dark suit plays on the ash slope, a video camera in the foreground, guitarists behind
1995Faial, Capelinhos
A guitarist seated on equipment cases, a woman in white standing nearby, a camera on a tripod at the left
1995Azores, “A Vaca de Fogo”
A village square with a bandstand under a tiled roof, musicians and a woman in white performing for the camera, onlookers behind
1995Azores, “A Vaca de Fogo”
A man in sunglasses and a white shirt and a young woman with a braid in a blue shirt, leaning in a wooden doorway
1995Azores, Teresa Salgueiro (right)

Technical sheet

Title
Les Açores de Madredeus
Year
1995
Runtime
40 min
Countries
France, Belgium
Languages
Portuguese, French
Production
Mona Lisa Films, with RTBF and France Supervision
Availability
Remastered 2025 · DVD Arte Vidéo (2006)
Direction
Rob Rombout
Image
Jean-Paul Dezaeytijd
Sound
Paul Heymans
Editing
Adriana Moreira de Oliveira